


Barb Osborne's School of Rock

by Closeted_Calliope



Category: Trolls (Movies 2016 2020), Trolls: The Beat Goes On (Cartoon), Trolls: TrollsTopia (Cartoon)
Genre: Ash is just what we've been calling that red rock troll with the white hair you know her, Barb is Dewey, Creek Sid n ash make up Barb's band, F/F, I included as many canon kids from the series as I could but there's only like 8 so, Poppy is the principal, Riff n branch are the roommate n the roommates partner, Slow Burn, Val is Barb's replacement, also they're still trolls but it takes place in a more modern human-ish society, basically follows the plot of the movie with some moderate twists, cw will be provided if there is a particularly bad joke that I stole from the movie, i stole a bunch of my friends ocs to make this fic possible, like very much a slow burn, rated m for lots of foul language and crude jokes, school of rock au, thank you gays only trolls discord for your participation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:29:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28655013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closeted_Calliope/pseuds/Closeted_Calliope
Summary: Local bum and rock aficionado Barb Osborne is given an ultimatum by her roommate and close friend Riff; get some money to actually pay rent, or he'll be forced to kick her out. And since she got kicked out of her band, Rock Tooth, just a few weeks before the Battle of the Bands, she's in desperate need of cash. So when she receives a phone call asking for Riff to substitute at a local private elementary school, she naturally accepts in his place. And when she discovers these kids have a natural musical talent beyond anything she'd had her whole life, that's when she comes up with the best worst idea she's ever had;She's going to teach these kids how torock.
Relationships: Branch/Riff (Trolls), Queen Barb/Queen Poppy (Trolls)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	1. A Call to Rockin'

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Nick from the gays only troll event server for blessing my eyes with this glorious concept, your brain is so juicy and wrinkly ahahah. Also thanks to the others in the gay trolls server for their continued support and allowing me to use their child ocs because there are not enough canon troll kids lmao.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of unfortunate circumstances leads Barb to make a knee-jerk decision in hopes of getting some fast cash.

It was a cool Sunday evening in the heart of Volcano Rock City, and the sound of rock music could be heard floating out of the heart of a seedy little nightclub.

The nightclub was filled with exactly the sort of people you'd think to find in a hard rock club; potheads and alcoholics, college students forgetting about their classes tomorrow, punks and loners and the other rejects of society. They were all chatting amongst themselves, drinking various alcoholic beverages, and listening to the live band performing: Rock Tooth.

Feedback from one of the mics echoes throughout the club, to the irritation of everyone around. Lead guitarist for the band, Barb Osborne, angrily gestured over to the sound booth to turn up the amps connected to her guitar.How did they expect her to melt the minds of everyone in the audience if they couldn't hear her shredding? 

After giving sound a moment to adjust the sound, she checked the sound of her guitar in the amp. Still not ideal, but definitely better.

As she played, she attempted to pull an epic rocker move and lean up against Creek, lead singer and fellow guitarist. He stepped to the side and rolled his eyes; Barb always made them look stupid in front of the audience. Still, he tried not to let his annoyance show in his voice as he sang. With Battle of the Bands only three weeks away, they needed all the practice they could get. And with Ash on drums and Sid on bass, there was no way they could lose.

Barb attempted to have Creek share his mic with her, and he firmly shouldered her away, not that she noticed, kicking her legs into the air with a wild grin on her face.

Okay, yeah, maybe there was _one_ way that they could lose. 

As the chorus ended and the bridge began, Barb's fingers danced along the fretboard, leaning all the way back onto the floor, pushing herself around on the floor with her feet. 

Creek stifled a laugh as he continued to play his own guitar. She always wanted to play a different style than the rest of them, but the funniest part was that her 'style' didn't even suit her. 

Some random guy texted his buddy in the crowd, _These guys SUCK. Wanna leave?_ Said buddy caught his friend's eye and nodded.

Creek started up on the chorus again, failing to notice Barb standing off to the side and taking her guitar off. Before anyone could really understand what she was trying to do, she'd already ripped her shirt off and attempted to stage dive into the crowd.

Said crowd immediately moved out of the way of this crazy bitch, sending Barb flying into some poor guy's drink, belly-flopping straight onto the floor. 

As the crowd gathered around her still form, murmuring about how much that had to hurt or how stupid was that move, Barb groaned, "Aw man, nobody caught me. That sucks."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"C'mon, Riff, you're gonna have to tell her sooner or later."

"But Branch-"

"You can't just keep 'but Branch'ing your way out of this, Riff. Aren't you tired of just letting her push you around? And for what?"

Riff sighed. "I mean, yeah...."

"Then get in there and just tell her!"

Riff hesitated. Branch, his boyfriend for nearly four months now, groaned in aggravation and threw open the shower curtains that had been used to section off part of their living room as Barb's 'room'.

Barb snorted awake at the sound. She mumbled to herself incoherently, pushing herself up into a sitting position on her mattress, which was just plopped onto the floor and the only piece of furniture she actually had to her name.

"What is it?" She managed to groggily asked.

Riff took a deep breath and stepped into her 'room'. "Barb, it's the first of the month, and you know I gotta ask you for your share of the rent. Now, please."

Barb blinked. "Bro," She groaned, rubbing her face with her hand, "You _know_ I don't have it!" She began to settle back down in bed, mumbling as she draped a blanket over her head, "You wake me up just for that? Bullshit."

Riff muttered an apology and turned to leave the 'room', only to see Branch gesturing for him to keep going. Riff grimaced, turning back to Barb with what he hoped was a stern face. "Barb."

She peeked out from under her blanket.

"I'm serious man, you already owe me a ton of money as it is."

Branch piped in, "2,200, if you wanna get real specific, Barbara."

"Okay, first of all, who the hell gave you the right to call me Barbara?" Barb snapped. "Only my dad gets to call me that. Second of all, my band is about to hit it big, we're gonna win Battle of the Bands in three weeks, the prize is 20,000 dollars, and I'll pay you guys back and then some. How's that sound?"

"Barb, we both know that your band hasn't made two cents in, what, 3 years?" Branch pointed out. 

"Branch, please," Riff tried to butt in, "I'm taking care of this."

Branch groaned. "I know that you care about her, and that she's your oldest friend, but that doesn't give her the right to just walk all over you!"

"Dad, can we please just talk about this later?" Barb whined, burying herself inside her blanket once more.

"You know, Barb, we actually can't because Riff and I have jobs. Because we're actually adults. Because we actually contribute to society," Branch retorted. "I have a well paying job assisting the mayor of our city-"

"Ugh, god, Riff, can we please get rid of him?"

"-and Riff," Branch continued as if Barb hadn't said anything, "has one of the most important jobs in the world." Branch gave him a quick peck on the cheek, getting a bashful giggle out of Riff.

Barb was unfazed by their domesticity. "...Temping?"

Riff rolled his eyes."Barb, a substitute teacher is more than just a temp."

"A glorified babysitter, if you ask me."

"Please, you wouldn't last one day," Riff taunted, though there wasn't malice in his voice.

Barb scoffed, "Okay, so I know you two don't get it, but I service society by rocking. I'm out there every night, on the front lines, freeing people from the confines of conformity with my rad music. Rock isn't just a walk in the park!"

"Ok, clearly we're getting nowhere with this," Branch interrupted, turning to Riff. "Tell her that if she doesn't get the rent by the end of the week, she's gone!"

Riff, clearly uncomfortable having to do this to one of his best friends, managed to squeak out, "Barb, I-I can't keep paying your share of the rent, man. So.... I dunno, maybe start by selling one of your guitars?"

Barb looked offended. "Would you tell Picasso to sell _his_ guitars, Riff?"

Branch groaned, "It's no use, she's a moron!" and stomped off to his room to get ready for work.

Barb sat back up on her mattress, dropping her voice a bit so Branch wouldn't hear. "Dude, I'm telling you, he's not good for you! I've been mooching off you for how many years and it's never been an issue, but then suddenly he shows up and now nothing I do is right? C'mon, bro, just leave him already! We both know you can do better than that!"

Riff sighed, "Well, if you don't come up with the money soon, he's gonna dump me first."

"Would that really be so bad, though?"

"Dude, we both know that I may never get another boyfriend again!" Riff hissed back anxiously. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! So please, just find a way to get the money!"

Barb fell back onto her back. "Fiiiiiiiiine, I'll go job hunting after band practice."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaat's up, dweebs?" Barb hollered as she burst into the practice studio, guitar case in hand, nearly half an hour late.

Creek scoffed, "It's about time you finally showed up. We have some important things to discuss-"

"About Battle of the Bands? Its about time, we really need to start bringing our A-game if we want to win this thing- who the hell is that?" Barb pointed out someone she'd never seen before.

She was a rock troll, maybe a few years younger than her, her skin a periwinkle blue and her hair streaky purple. If it weren't for the intimidating aura surrounding her, Barb may have been so inclined to start hitting on her.

The mystery troll smirked. "Name's Val Thundershock. Pleasure to meet you."

Barb stifled a snicker. "What, did you pick than name out yourself?"

"Sure did, had it legally changed when I turned 18."

"Fair enough," Barb muttered with a shrug.

"You see, Barb," Creek cut in, putting a hand on Val's shoulder, which she almost immediately shrugged off, "Val is our new guitarist."

Barb's brain short-circuited. "W-What?"

"To put it simply-"

"You're out of the band, man," Sid interrupted, sitting on an amp while he tuned his bass.

"You- you gotta be kidding me," Barb stammered.

"I really am sorry, Barb, truly," Creek said, more patronizing than comforting, "but we all agreed that we need to start taking things seriously if we want to eventually land a record deal, let alone win. We took a vote and everything; you're the weakest link."

Sid insisted, "It was all their idea, I'd keep you if we could."

Ash popped out from beneath her drum set and snarked, "Like you didn't vote her out too."

"That's beside the point, dude."

Barb laughed humorlessly. "You know, you guys, you're right. This is probably for the best, considering you guys would rather become corporate sellouts than make music for the sake of music. And who cares if the band was my idea all along, right? I'm gonna form a better band than you losers ever were! Just you all wait and see!" She began to back out of the studio, pointing out each member with wild eyes. "You're gonna regret kicking me out once I make it big! And all you'll ever be is a funny little footnote on my epic ass."

She kicked over a cymbal from a drum set they weren't using, before stomping out, calling out behind her, "I actually feel sorry for you guys."

As the door shut behind her, Sid hummed, "She took that a lot better than I thought she would."

Val nodded. "She seems like she was fun. I like her."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Yeah, no, its a Gibson, standard electric, it's got a real nice cherry wood finish-"

Barb was walking around in just her boxers and a sports bra, trying to seal the deal on this guitar sale. 

"I was hoping to start the price at 1,500....What? No, we're talking a mint condition piece that Jimi Hendrix himself played on, I hope you realize that this is quite the deal- Hello? Hello?" 

Barb sighed, slumping into the couch cushions. "Fuck...."

She rubbed her face with her hands. If she couldn't get someone to buy this, then she'd have to try and get a real job. And that wouldn't be easy, considering she dropped out of high school, never went to college, and had no skills outside of making music. 

The phone began to ring again. Barb hoped it wasn't another cheapskate trying to buy her guitar for a measly 200 dollars. 

She picked up the phone and answered it. "Hello?"

A very perky voice responded to her. "Hello, is there a Riff Schneebly there?"

"Uh, he's not home at the moment, but I guess I can take a message?"

"Oh, great! My name is Poppy Patterson, I am the principal of Mountain Ridge Elementary, and I called around and heard that you were one of the best substitutes in the entire state!"

Barb rolled her eyes. She really didn't need some random lady singing Riff's praises when he wasn't even home. Still she remained silent.

This lady, Poppy, Barb supposed, continued, "I hate to call on such short notice, but do you think Mr. Shneebly would be able to come in? One of our teachers had a bit of an accident this morning, and all of the other substitutes in the county are unavailable-"

"So how long's the gig?"

"...I'm sorry?"

"The job, how long does the position last?" Barb asked, an idea creeping into her head.

"The position should last a-about a month and a half or so, depending on how long our teacher's out, though I don't see why that'd be any of your-"

"And what would be the. wages of this job? Hypothetically speaking of course.

Poppy seemed to be getting a little impatient, and retorted, "It pays 650 a week." 

(Barb had to cover the phone receiver to keep Poppy from hearing her shocked gasp. This was a goldmine just ripe for the taking.)

"Clearly, Mr. Schneebly isn't home at the moment, so if you don't mind-"

"Uh, actually, you know what?" Barb interrupted, "He just walked in, if you'll excuse me- HEY, RIFF! PHONE!" She, of course, was yelling to no one, and made sure to fumble with the phone for a bit to sound like she was passing it along.

She regained her grip on the phone and, in her best impression of Riff, said into the phone receiver, "This is Riff Schneebly, how may I help you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this first chapter, we'll start interacting with the kids and stuff next chapter, don't worry. Not sure when the next one will be out but i'll try not to make y'all wait too long. Anyway, see y'all next time lol
> 
> -CC


	2. Wolf in Teachers' Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barb starts her career as a substitute teacher, which goes about as well as you'd expect it to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a lot of work tackling the project that is cleaning my depression room today, so we're gonna treat me (and by extension, y'all) by working on another chapter. Also my buddy from the trolls server Nanite did some AWESOME art (for the au, not necessarily based off this fic lol) so you should check it out on their tumblr @nanite-city
> 
> Also don't @ me if Poppy seems weirdly ooc this chapter, there's a reason she's a bit more serious, but we won't really touch on why until later chapters, so just trust me lol

Barb tore into the parking lot of the school, her van narrowly avoiding other cars just trying to drop off their kids. She glanced up at the school in front of her as she swerved to a stop into a parking space. The school was huge; it was practically a castle, with thick bricked walls mimicking gothic architecture. Huge windows were evenly spaced along the walls, and kids were scurrying their way into the granite archway. Barb scoffed to herself as she watched parents walking their kids inside, or stopping their car and letting them escape from the backseat. She couldn't believe these rich assholes were willing to throw away thousands of dollars a year on their little brats- and for what? To have them learn the exact same shit every kid their age learned, but in ugly uniforms? The audacity.

Still, she couldn't complain too much; rich parents just meant more money went into her paycheck, and that's what really mattered here. 

She inspected her appearance in her rearview mirror. She had managed to find a fairly unwrinkled button-up shirt, some old slacks, and a plain blazer in her wardrobe; she remained unaware of how any of those things got there in the first place, but decided not to question it too much. She'd also dug out an old bow tie from some wedding she'd been forced to attend years prior. She made sure her mohawk was covering her buzz, not wanting to get fired on the spot for "improper hair" or some other bullshit. She hoped the combover wasn't too obvious.

Taking a deep breath, she exited the van and began her trek towards the main doors. 

She hoped this "Poppy" lady wouldn't be too hard to find.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I cannot stress enough how excited we are to have you with us, Miss Schneebly," Poppy Patterson, Principal of Mountain Ridge Elementary, babbled as she led Barb through the halls.

"Oh, please, call me Ba- uh, RIFF, call me Riff," Barb insisted, stumbling over her words for a moment as she remembered thee part she was playing.

Poppy was a very pink troll who seemed bubbly by the sound of her voice, though from their phone conversation Barb was beginning to think that was merely the tip of the iceberg. She dressed herself in neutral colors, wore her hair in a big bun on the top of her head, and wore little half-moon spectacles on the bridge of her nose. Clearly, this troll meant business.

Poppy flipped through the clipboard in her hands and hummed with a small frown, "That's strange, all your paperwork uses he/him pronouns..."

"Uhh, I actually transitioned over the summer," Barb blurted out, using the first excuse that came to mind, "I just never got a chance to change the pronouns in all the, um, paperwork. But it's fine, it happens all the time, don't worry about it too much."

"Oh, of course, I see, I see." Poppy seemed satisfied with that answer, and quickly flipped through the rest of the paperwork. She lauded, "We were very impressed by your resume, Miss Schneebly. We do apologize for the short notice, but we truly were in a bit of a bind-"

"Oh, no, yeah, of course," Barb interrupted, "I don't suppose I could get paid in cash?"

"Um, no, we don't do that here."

"Oh, uh, then when you cut my check, make it out to Barbara Osborne, for tax reasons."

"You can discuss all of that with Harper at the end of the day." Poppy's polite manner was starting to sound a bit forced.

"No, yeah, of course.... When would that be again?"

"The school day starts at 8:15 and ends at 3."

"Cool, uh, would it be possible for me to head out a little early?" Barb asked. "Got some important errands to do." 

She could practically see Poppy's eye start to twitch, so she quickly added, "You know what? Nevermind, it's fine, it can wait until after, I'll just stay."

"Miss Schneebly," Poppy started, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes, "I hope you're well aware of the fact that Mountain Ridge has managed to be known asthe best elementary school in the state, and we maintain that title by having everyone adhere to a strict code of conduct," she leaned in closer to Barb, "faculty included."

Barb gulped and attempted to hide her unease with a chuckle. "Yeah, well, you don't need to worry about me, I'm-I'm a real hard-ass, hehe. I will have no qualms disciplining these kids if i gotta. I will make them well aware I am the big boss around here. N-Not in like a physical way, though, of course, because that kind of stuff really messes kids up when they get older. No it'd just be verbal punishment obviously."

Poppy sighed, very well aware how desperate she was for this position to be filled. "You know what?" She suggested, sounding pained, "Why don't you just send anyone you have problems with to me, okay?"

"Yeah, no, sure. Sounds good."

Poppy walked over to a classroom door and opened it up. "Alright children, time to take your seats."

Barb awkwardly followed the principal into the classroom. The kids had been sitting around on top of desks and chatting quietly with each other, but as soon as Poppy entered the room, they quickly but orderly made their way into their seats, folding their hands neatly in front of them. It was a fairly diverse classroom, Barb noticed, full of trolls of different genres and colors, unlike some of the classrooms she had been forced to sit through when she was a kid. 

"Class," Poppy announced, "I'd like you all to meet Mrs. Duluth's replacement for the next few weeks. Miss Shneebly, why don't you write your name up on the board?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, of course." Barb made her way to the chalkboard, picked up a crumbly piece, and began to spell out "Schneebly". 

Unfortunately, about halfway through, Barb realized that she did not, in fact, know how to spell "Schneebly". She probably should've seen this coming, considering she could barely spell "Osborne" half the time, and that was her actual name.

"Actually," She started, erasing the majority of the name she had begun to write with her hand, "why don't you all just call me Miss S?" She emphasized this point by underlining Miss S several times before turning back to face the class.

"Miss S has never taught here at Mountain Ridge before," Poppy explained, "so i do expect you all to be on your best behavior." She was met with nods and smiles from the students. 

She stepped over to the desk and pinted out some papers to Barb. "So this is the students' current curriculum, do you have any other questions-?"

"Uh, yeah, just one: when's lunch?"

Poppy forced herself to stay composed. "The children just ate their lunch."

"Ah, okay."

"Anything else?"

"All I need now is to mold the minds of these wonderful children into something beautiful, as is the way of the teacher," Barb stated, hoping she came off as poetic and not as a try-hard douchebag.

"Alright, well if that's all, I'll leave you to it," Poppy said, heading for the door. As she stepped out the doorway, she reiterated, "You really saved the day here," and closed the door behind her.

Barb waited approximately 3 seconds after Poppy had left before turning to the class and asking, "Alright, who's got some food?"

The kids blankly stared at her.

"Don't worry," Barb assured them, "you're not gonna get in _trouble_. I haven't eaten like all day. C'mon, one of you's gotta have something."

The kids continued to stare at her. Then, sheepishly, cautiously, a little country troll girl that sat at the back of the classroom raised her hand.

"Oh, hell yeah, kid, what do you got for me?" Barb swiftly walked towards her desk.

The kid anxiously opened up the top of her desk; amongst the papers and pencils and other school supplies, sat a lone sandwich, wrapped lovingly up in plastic wrap.

"Yeah, now that's what I'm talking about!" Barb snatched up the sandwich and walking back towards the front of the classroom. 

"Alright, so here's the deal," She started, addressing the students with a mouth half full of sandwich, "I have the worst hangover right now. Do we all know what 'hangover' means?"

"Don't it mean you're drunk?" A country troll, different than the one before, piped up from the back middle of the room.

Barb scoffed, "Uh, no, it means I was drunk yesterday."

Another kid, a pop troll with weird eyes that pointed in separate directions, piped up, "It means you're an alcoholic."

"Wrong-"

The country troll from the back spoke up again, "You wouldn't come to school hungover unless you were one."

Barb stared at her. "What's your name, kid?"

"Clampers Buttonwillow."

"Well, Clampers Buttonwillow, shut up." Barb took another bite of the sandwich.

As a few of the other kids snickered and mumbled, "Yeah, shut up, Clampers," which said troll merely rolled her eyes to, Barb continued, "Basically, I'm gonna be out of commission today, so you guys can just like, chill, I guess. We'll start all of," she gestured vaguely, " _this_ , tomorrow."

A pop troll with huge round glasses sitting front and center of the room raised her hand.

"Yes, Tinkerbell?"

"Actually, its Priscilla Thornwood, thanks," She corrected, pushing her glasses further onto the bridge of her nose, "but regardless, as class representative, I would like to first and foremost welcome you to Mountain Ridge." When Barb nodded in acknowledgment, she continued, "Additionally, I would like to know if you have any questions about our schedule."

"Like what?"

"Well, right about now, Mrs. Duluth usually starts with vocabulary, then we move on to a pop quiz, and from there we split off into our reading groups, group 1 has been working on-"

"Ok yeah, kid, that's real nice and all," Barb interrupted, raising a hand for her to stop, "but you seem to have forgotten that this isn't Miss Dumdum's class or whatever right now: its _my_ class. And I'm tired and I have a migrane, so that means it's time for recess."

"But how are we supposed to get gold stars if we don't work on anything?"

"Huh?"

Priscilla pointed to a little sticker chart near the door. As Barb headed over to inspect it, she explained, "That's our star chart. We get gold stars on when we master the covered material." She added with a smug grin, "I have the most out of everyone."

The chart was fairly basic, just a piece of construction paper with lines, filled with columns that had around a dozen different names on them, with gold stars and black dots placed next to the names.

She turned to the kids, confused. "...What are the black dots?"

"Demerits," One of the kids mentioned solemnly.

Barb turned back towards the chart. She felt something awaken inside of her. She remembered her class had something like this when she was a kid, though she grew up with green circles and red X's. She remembered all her classmates getting so many of the green circles whereas all she ever seemed to get were X's. Those X's really messed her up, made it harder for her to keep trying when she knew she was just gonna fail again.

In a sudden fit of rage, she tore the chart from the wall and started ripping it up. Priscilla gasped in terror, but the others just watched in silent bewilderment as Barb mangled it to beyond repair and throw it in the trashcan, breathing a little heavily.

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Barb announced, "So long as I work here, you kids don't need to worry about gold stars or... _demerits_. It's now time for recess, recess for the rest of the day, go have fun." She slunk over to the desk chair and plopped down, resting her feet up on the desk.

"But Mrs. Duluth only gives us 15 minutes for recess-" Priscilla protested.

"Well, she's not here, I am, and I say it's time for recess!" Barb reiterated. "Now, go on, enjoy yourselves."

The kids slowly and cautiously began getting up from their desks and began heading towards the shelves for the books and games. This whole situation was really weird, but hey, recess was recess, no matter how you cut it.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barb stared at the clock.

It was 2:59. One more minute until she was out of here.

The students watched Miss S with bewilderment. They'd never seen a teacher so excited to get out of class before.

Before they knew it, the clock had struck 3 and Barb jumped out of her seat with a whoop. "Hell yeah! Oh yeah, made it through the first day!" She ran across the front of the room high-fiving all the confused students in the first row. "Aw yeah you guys know what I'm talking about." She tore open the door and smirked, pointing at her class, "I will see you all tomorrow." And then she ran out the door.

She bolted down the hallways and out the front archway, jumping over the curb as she raced for her car.

Poppy noticed her running from her office window and sighed, burying her face in her hands. _We **really** need this substitute position filled_ she reminded herself.

Once she reached the safety of her van, she sighed in relief, shaking her her head to return her mohawk to its regular style. And with that, she threw the car into drive and tore out of the parking lot, heading for the inner streets of Volcano Rock City.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barb stifled a groan, not wanting to further piss Branch off in his already touchy mood, tearing out a page from her notebook and tossing it onto her "room" behind her.

She'd attempted to look for potential band members, going out into the streets and hanging up posters with her contact information on it. However, it seemed like wherever she went to put up the signs, there'd be some punks from the rock scene who'd find her posters and tear it down, laughing about the "old hack that can't stage dive". So after about an hour of work, she gave up and headed back home, deciding to try another way to get a band together.

As Riff reentered the apartment with pizza, an idea wafted into her brain. 

She waited until everyone had eaten a bit, giving Riff a little time to relax and for Branch to pull the stick out from his ass a few inches (being with Riff seemed to soften him up a bit). And as the two were finishing up their slices on the couch, bodies pressed close together, Barb popped the question. Or rather, popped the answer.

"Alright, Riff, you can be in my band." "Oh, no thanks, Barb," He politely declined.

Barb groaned, "Ugh, why not?!? You're one of the greatest drummers the world has ever seen! You're even better than Dave Grohl!!!"

Riff chuckled at that. "Woah, I don't think I'd put myself up at that high a standard, even in my prime, hehe. Besides, I haven't played in years, I don't think I'd even be good at it."

"Besides," Branch cut in, "He's got an actual job that pays him actual money, because unlike some people, he knows how to be an adult. And so do I, so don't even ask."

Barb rolled her eyes and snarked, "Oh trust me, I wasn't gonna ask you. I bet you don't have a musical bone in your body." Ignoring Branch's scoffs, she continued, "And just for the record, I do have a job, and it pays real good, so don't even start with that."

"Oh really? What is it, exactly, that you do?"

"Same thing Riff does, temping."

"I'm not a temp, I'm a substitute, soon to be a certified teacher," Riff corrected, his voice sparkling with a hint of pride.

"C'mon, please?" Barb begged, "It's just one show, 20,000 dollar prize, we split the money 60/40 and then you never have to do anything I ask ever again. Don't you miss rocking out?"

"If you think he's gonna leave his well-paying job to go play rock band with you, Barb, you're more delusional than I thought," Branch judged with a humorless laugh. 

Riff sighed, turning to Barb with a concerned look. "Maybe...maybe it's time to give up on those dreams, Barb. I mean, I did, and look at how great I'm doing! I got a boyfriend a-and a job-"

Barb scoffs, interrupting him, "Whatever you say, you hypocrite," turning on her heel and pulling her shower curtain "door" shut.

Branch, seeing Riff's visible uneasiness, placed a supportive hand on his knee. "Hey, I know close you are to her," he whispered, "but we both know she's in the wrong here. And sooner or later, you're gonna have to do something about it." 

Riff rested his head against Branch's shoulder, mumbling, "Yeah, I know..."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, uh, are we actually gonna learn something today?"

Barb peeked up from her magazine at the kids. It was the next day, her second one "teaching". The thrill of constant recess must've worn of because they started her expectantly. She sighed, putting down her magazine and stating, "You guys can just do whatever you want to do."

"Well I _want_ to learn from my teacher," Priscilla responded. 

"You know, kid, I really don't care. Now go have recess."

Priscilla insisted, "My parents don't pay 15,000 dollars a year for recess," garnering a few murmurs of agreement from the other kids.

Barb slid her feet of the desk with a huff and asked, "You kids really wanna learn some shit?"

"Yeah!" came a chorus of replies in response. 

Barb pushed herself out of the chair and pronounced, "Alright then, here's my lession for the day: just give up!"

The kids oggled at her as she continued, "It's one of the best things in lifee you can learn, giving up! Because, kids, you see, you really can't win in life. You can try your goddamn hardest, get ask close as you possibly can to making it, but right as you're about to grab the success that's directly in your reach, The Man comes and knocks you down."

"Who's The Man?" A purple pop troll wearing headphones asked.

"The Man," Barb explained, walking around the front of the classroom, "is the one responsible for all the stuff in life getting you down. That man in the White House? He's The Man. Your principal, Miss Patterson? She's The Man, too! And The Man is constantly pulling all this shit to make the world a worse place; He's chopping down all the forests, polluting all the oceans, separating immigrant kids from their families!"

The kids collectively shared a look. Miss S was really passionate about hating The Man.

"And there used to be away to really stick it to The Man," Barb continued, getting really hyped up from the passionate rage inside of her, "and it was called rock and roll, but then The Man capitalized off that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don't bother trying to make anything cool or awesome or different from the status quo, The Man's just gonna call you a useless bum and kick you out on the street."

She failed to notice Poppy opening the door behind her as she finished her rant, nearly yelling, "So just do yourselves a favor and just give up!"

Barb could tell from the surprised gasps of the kids that something had happened while she was going off and slowly turned around to find none other than her boss staring back at her. 

"Miss Schneebly, it's after 10. On Tuesdays, the children go to music class," She explained, her expression unreadable."

"R-Right, of course," Barb managed to stammer out, turning back to face the kids. She announced, "We will continue our lecture on The Man when you return. Now run along, go get educated in the art of music."

As the kids got up and shuffled their way out of the class, Barb caught Poppy's eye and smiled sheepishly.

_Please don't fire me please don't fire me please don't fire me please don't fire me_

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barb sighed as she exited the bathroom stall, having taken a well needed piss. She leaned down to reach the little child-height sink and washed her hands before glaring at herself in the mirror.

By some miracle, Poppy hadn't fired her on sight, but she didn't say anything when she'd left her classroom either, meaning that they probably weren't on the greatest of terms at the moment.

She groaned, leaning her head against the mirror. She really had to stop fucking around, because if she lost her job, Branch would have her out of the apartment before Riff even got a chance to agree with him.

A sound caused Barb's ears to prick up, pulling her from her thoughts. 

It was...music? Who played classical music for elementary schoolers?

She followed the sound out of the bathroom and down the hall, ending up outside a classroom. She peeked into the window, careful not to be seen by anyone inside.

It was her class, all playing like they were members of a mini orchestra. She watched in awe as Clampers, the country troll that tried to sass her yesterday, smashed a pair of cymbals together. A green techno troll was moving their fingers along the neck of a cello. Hell, there was even a rock troll vibing out on an acoustic guitar!

She didn't know that kids, let alone _her_ kids, could be such talented musicians. Why, maybe if they were a little older, she'd even ask them to- 

And that's when it hit her: an idea so ingenious, it was almost too good to be true. 

Grinning, she raced down the hall and out of the building, heading for her van.

If she really wanted to pull this off, she was gonna need some extra supplies first.

She was going to teach these children the good word of the greatest genre ever invented: rock and roll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all for this chapter, babes. I won't be able to update everyday like I did for the Binch fic, but hopefully I'll bee able to get the next chapter out within a few days. Thanks again to Nick, Nanite, and the others in the gay trolls discord for enabling me into doing this ashjkajhsga. Anyway, see yall in the next one!
> 
> -CC


	3. Building the Band

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barb begins to teach her students the most important art form of all time: rock n roll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are finally properly meeting the kids which I am VERY excited about, special thanks to Nick, Todd, and Max from the gay trolls server for letting me use their ocs Winnie, Batty, and Crumbles respectively, y'all really saved me from having to make up more characters aksjFHajksfhjHF. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter!!!!!

As the students reentered the classroom, they found themselves shocked at what they found inside.

There were all sorts of musical instruments strewn around the front of the classroom; a few guitars, a base or two, a drum set, and a keyboard. A somewhat manic-looking Barb was tuning one of the guitars when she noticed the door opening and greeted the kids with a wave. "Hey, kids!"

"Miss S, what's all this?" Priscilla asked, confused. The other kids muttered in agreement.

"I heard you kids in your music class. Since when did you guys know how to totally shred it, and why was I not informed of this sooner?'

"Uh, is 'shredding it' a good-"

"You." Barb interrupted the child, pointing out the rock troll girl: her soon to be protégé. You play guitar?"

She nodded. "Yeah, classical guitar."

"What's your name, kid?"

"Amp."

"Well, Amp," Barb beckoned her over, slinging an electric guitar over the kid's shoulders, "you ever play electric before?"

She shook her head. "My dad wouldn't let me; he says it's just a waste of time."

Barb tried to keep her shock and anger to herself, but her ears twitched involuntarily. A rock troll not allowed to play electric? What a nightmare! Like sure, your born genre doesn't define who you grow up to be, but not allowed at all? Unspeakable. Truly unspeakable.

Somehow she managed to keep these frenzied thoughts to herself as she explained, "Your dad is severely wrong, kid. Here, take a pick." Barb handed Amp a pick and slung a guitar over her own shoulders, explaining, "Just follow after me, okay?"

Amp nodded, still a bit confused as to what was going on, but curious all the same.

Barb, grinning devilishly, played a short riff from the ever classic Iron Man by Black Sabbath.

Amp didn't hesitate to play the exact same chords, picking the material up pretty quickly.

Barb tried another riff out for size, Highway to Hell by ACDC.

Once again, Amp mimicked it perfectly.

"Yes!" Sensing something special about this kid, Barb quickly shredded out a complex little riff of her own design.

Amp paused for a moment, processing the information, then proceeded to replay the riff note for note.

"Oh, hell yeah, kid!" Barb punched her fist into the air, adrenaline rushing through her. "Just stay here for a moment." Barb singled out her next band member: a particularly small and sparkly guy. "You, little guy, what's your name?"

"Tiny Diamond, ma'am."

Barb hummed. "Huh, fitting name. You ever play a synth, Tiny? Ever play any techno?"

"Nope, just piano," Tiny replied, following Barb's beckoning gesture.

"Yeah, fair enough," Barb muttered under her breath, pulling over a stool and patting it, watching as Tiny hops on without too much trouble. She pulls a book of sheet music (all rock classics, of course) flipped open to the beginning of Touch Me by The Doors. "Why don't you give this a try?"

Tiny glanced at the notes and, despite his small stature and short arms, managed bang out the tunes with relative ease. 

Barb bobbed her head to the jam Tiny was throwing down, and began to sing a little under her breath, " _C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, now touch me babe... can't you see, that I am not afraid.../_ "

Tiny couldn't help but smile up at Barb as she continued to sing, changing up the original lyrics, " _Tiny is real good at piano... he shall be playing in my show!_ " 

She then interrupted his little performance, switching to a speaking voice, "Stop stop stop, it's perfect, you're perfect. Stay right there."

Next role to fill was bass. "You, guppy, come here," She commanded the little techno troll. As he floated over (how he did that, Barb didn't even want to understand, but it was better than when they walked on their tail fins Jesus Christ), she asked curtly, "Name?"

"Coral Blush."

"Instrument?"

"Cello?"

"Oh, this is gonna work out real nicely," Barb remarked, leaning over her desk to grab a bass and handed it to the kid, draping the strap over his shoulder. "You see the beauty of this, this is called a bass, is that it's basically just a cello, but instead of playing it like _this_ ," she mimed out playing a cello, upright and vertical, "you play it like _this_ ," she moved her imaginary cello on its side, "tip it over just like that, 'chello, you got a bass!"

Coral looked at her with eager eyes that hid his bafflement as Barb explained, "Alright so this here is a G, you're just gonna play that for me."

Coral played the indicated note without hassle.

"Rad, now you're just gonna chill out, relax, let your fingers do the rockin', we're gonna get a nice G, G, G, G, G, G, G..."

As Coral plucked the string to the beat of Barb's chanting, she praised, "Yes, keep that G coming all day!"

She let him get the hang of it for a moment before gently stopping him. "Great job. Pause."

Barb looked at her remaining students. "We got any drummers present?"

There was a slight hesitation before Clampers Buttonwillow raised her hand sheepishly. "I play percussion?"

"Really?" Barb seemed pleasantly surprised.

"They wouldn't let me play mouth harp and I can't play anything else."

"C'mere, kiddo." 

Clampers obediently made her way to the front of the classroom and sat in the seat of the drum set. Barb explained to her, handing her a pair of drumsticks and pulling a spare set out of her back pockets, "Just try to do what I do, alright?" At Clamper's nod, she played a very simple pattern on the set.

Clampers looked at Barb, looked at the drums, then cautiously, but correctly, repeated the pattern. 

"Yes!!! Stay right there."

She headed back over to Tiny, ignoring the puzzled yet curious eyes of the rest of the class. "Alright, so Tiny, can I get a G note?"

Tiny pressed the key.

"With a fifth above it?"

Tiny pressed another key.

"And the middle?"

As Tiny obeyed, Barb corrected with a grimace, "Oh no, scratch that, no middle, changed my mind. Uh, can we go an octave down?" 

Tiny obliged, and Barb instructed, "Now, get some rhythm in there, like a little bit of a, _bop bop bop bop bop bop_..." 

As he tapped on the keys rhythmically, Barb grinned and went back to Coral. "Alright remember that G we played earlier? We're gonna play that again, but don't forget to keep rockin' it." 

Coral nodded, plucking the strings in time with Tiny's beat.

She then returned to Clampers, who pulled the drumstick she was absently chewing on out of her mouth. "Here's what we're gonna try," she said as she gestured to the floor tom, "can we get a little bit of a... something like..." She pounded out a beat on her legs. 

Clampers started to play it, banging out the beat, but it wasn't long before Barb gently grabbed her hands to stop her. "Oooh, we're getting major George of the Jungle vibes there, not your fault, uhhhh, let's try it on the high hat, but," she clarified, "nice and gentle-like."

As Clampers gently tapped it out, Barb muttered, "Oh, hell yeah, there we go." Clampers couldn't help but smile from the praise.

"Super rad, keep playing that for me. Amp!" She turned to face her final band member, who visibly perked up. "You know Smoke on the Water?"

Amp shook her head.

"Well, don't worry, it's real easy, it's kinda like..." Barb vocalized the notes for her.

Hesitantly, Amp strummed out the chords, nailing them instantly. 

"Yes!!!" Barb cried in triumph as she observed her band, playing rock in perfect harmony. She could hardly contain her excitement as she cheered, "All right, let's go!" and began really jamming out to the music.

A few of the other students, especially the kid with the weird eyes and a funk troll with bandages on his head, were visibly rocking along in their seats, but the majority of them, including the musicians currently playing, were staring at Barb, who was dancing along as though she were in her own little world.

After a few more moments of vibing, she managed to pull herself out of her excitement and commanded, "Alright, stop."

The kids stopped playing.

"Okay guys, we really gotta stop messing around here, we have a lot of work to do." She addressed the whole classroom, "You kids really gotta pay attention to this because I don't wanna have to fail you guys."

Priscilla piped up, "I thought you didn't believe in grades?"

"Uhhh, that was clearly a test, of course I believe in grade. Congrats on passing my test, Priscilla, 5 stars for you."

That boosted her ego quite a bit, as she adjusted herself in her seat and sat up straight and proud.

Barb continued, "Okay, so here's the dealio; normal kids would've been totally stoked to slack off for a month and a half, but you guys aren't normal kids, are you? Nah, you kids are special. You guys have the right attitude for a productive school career, and because of that, we're gonna start a new class project."

"Like a science project?"

"Haha, nope. This project is called...." Barb paused for dramatic effect, "....Rock Band."

"Is it a school project?" Amp asked.

"Sure is, kid, and it's a requirement. Now, I know it might _sound_ like an easy project," Barb explained, her tone the most serious it had been since she'd started teaching the day before, "but it's a lot of hard work. Honestly, there are few things you will face in life that will be as hard as this project. It's gonna test your brain, as well as your mind, and your head, too."

The girl with the headphones raised her hand. "Will other schools be competing?"

Barb paused to think for a moment, before nodding. "...You could say that. In fact, you could say that every school in the whole state is gonna be competing for the top prize!"

"What's the prize?"

"...I mean, winning first place would look fantastic on your permanent record. Like, I'm sure Harvard would accept you right off the bat if we won."

The kids whispered and mumbled to each other with excitement. Playing music for the chance to guarantee they wouldn't have to work as hard to get into a good college? Now _this_ was something that might get their parents' off their backs.

"Of course, technically," Barb continued, interrupting the commotion in front of her, "we aren't supposed to start preparing until next quarter, so it's best we keep this all under wraps, unless we wanna get disqualified."

"Can we tell our parents?"

"No! Word travels way too quickly among adults, we don't wanna risk it."

Realization hit one of the students near the back, and loudly asked, despite the gleeful chatter of her classmates, "Wait, what are the rest of us gonna do?"

"You guys," Barb informed them, "can just sit back and enjoy the rockin."

The country troll in the back's eyes welled up with tears as she whispered, "You mean, we don't get to be a part of the band?"

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, pause." Barb looked out at the students in their desks, who'd all had a troubled look on their faces at the idea of not being in the band. Now that wouldn't do, nope, not at all. 

"Just because you guys aren't _in_ the band doesn't mean you're not in the _band_. Uh, can anyone here sing?"

The girl who had spoken up about not being in the band, an orange pop troll, raised her hand.

"Alright, kid, show me what you got."

The girl, a little nervous, stood up from her desk and managed to sing, " _The sun will come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow_ -"

"Stop. You got it, kid, what's your name again?"

"Gemma."

"Gemma, you got it, and I don't even know what it is, but you've got it. Welcome to the band, kiddo!" Barb declared, relishing in the beaming grin that fell across the girl's face. "Any other singers?"

Priscilla excitedly waved her arm around. "I can, I can!"

"Well then, sing it, sister."

With all the confidence in the world, but also the worst voice Barb had ever heard in her life, Priscilla belted out, " _Meeem-oryyyyy, all alone in the mooon-liiiight_ -"

"Gonna put a quick pause on that, Prissy, uh, that was pretty good," Barb lied, forcing a smile. 

"I can also play clarinet," Priscilla informed her, grinning proudly.

"Awesome, cool, great, we-we'll think of something for you," Barb said, "we'll find killer positions for all of you, but right now," she glanced at the clock, "it's time for lunch. Fill up on some gruel and we'll continue when we get back."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Miss S?"

Barb looked up from her notebook, where she'd been scribbling down ideas for different roles each of these kids could play, only to find on one standing in front of the teacher's table in the lunchroom. Then she noticed the very edge of some white hair sticking up from the bottom and brought her gaze down. She gave the kid what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "What's up, Tiny?"

Tiny Diamond shifted his weight between his feet and looked at the ground, mumbling something incoherently.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that, kid. Would you mind hopping up here and saying that again?"

Tiny nodded, climbing up one of the seats until he was standing on top of it. Resting his head and his hands on the edge of the table, he repeated, "I don't think I should be in the band."

"What? Why? You're one of the best keyboarders I've heard in ages!"

Scratching the back of his neck anxiously, Tiny explained, "It's really hard for me to use that big of a keyboard, and I just don't think it would sound very good when I can't reach the keys."

Barb took this into consideration. She hadn't considered his height deficiency.

"Besides," he continued, "I'm not sure how I'll be able to help the band when I'm this small; the crowd won't even notice me onstage."

"Now, hang on just a minute there, Mr. Diamond," Barb interrupted him. "Just because you're small doesn't mean you're unnoticeable. One of my old friends from college, her name was Smidge, and she was known for being the loudest, most rockin screamo singer in the whole county, even though she was only about two feet tall, four feet if you included the hair."

"R-Really?!?"

"Oh yeah, what Smidge lacked in size she made up for in stage presence and overall vibes. Besides, you've got a one up on her, she didn't have nearly as much sparkle as you do," Barb continued, "I mean, it's gonna be hard to miss someone as shiny as you onstage, Tiny."

"I mean, I guess, but what about the keyboard?"

Barb hummed, thinking about her options here, and that's when she remembered it.

"You know, I think Smidge left one of her special custom-built keyboards in the back of my car! It might take a little fixing up, but I think it would work perfectly."

Tiny's face lit up.

Barb looked the boy in the eye and asked, "So, will you be a part of my band?"

"I'll do it!" Tiny replied, practically vibrating with excitement.

"Now, this is a big commitment here, kid, I can't have you flaking out me halfway through, so don't just say 'yes' if you don't really mean it."

"I mean it, I promise," he reiterated, nodding his head at such a speed Barb could've considered it headbanging.

"Tiny Diamond...." Barb started, holding out her hand for him to shake, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, "....welcome to the band."

Beaming, he took her hand, only for Barb to lead him through a series of complicated and hand movements, leading to a long, but very epic, band member handshake.

"It's a long shake, but don't worry we have time to practice, now go finish your lunch.

As he headed back towards his lunch table, Tiny called back to her, "Thanks, Miss S!"

She responded with a little before returning her attention to her notes.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright, my little rockstars," Barb announced, cracking her knuckles at the front of the classroom, staring out at her miniature army of children, "this is what I was thinking for roles."

She pointed out Amp. "On lead guitar, we got Amplifier." 

Amp responded by throwing up some horns, smiling nervously.

Barb continued, "On bass, Guppy."

Coral beamed at the nickname.

"On keyboard, Big Talent in a Small Package."

Tiny lifted up his glasses and gave a wink to his fellow students. 

"And on drums, we got Miss Chew n' Chomp." 

Clampers, living up to her nickname by chewing on the end of one of her drumsticks, gave a thumbs up of acknowledgement.

"Uhh, we got Tangerine over here singing backup," Barb said, pointing out Gemma, who threw up a little peace sign.

Barb thought to herself for a moment, then singled out the kid with the weird eyes. "Walleyes."

The kid stood up and looked at her. Or at least, Barb assumed he was. 

She also singled out another kid, this one wearing a bat-eared cape over his school uniform. "Bat Brain."

When he also stood up, Barb explained, "You two are on security duty. Your first job is to soundproof this room so no one finds out what we're doing here. The future of the band depends on you two."

The weird-eyed kid gave a salute and went to go start soundproofing, but the bat kid stayed behind. "Can I be the team's costumer instead?" He asked.

Barb smirked. "Hell yeah, go for it, Halloweenie."

She then singled out another pair of students. "Bandana, Headphones."

The girl with the headphones and the other country troll stood up. 

"You two are our roadies, you'll be working with our equipment: guitars, amps, maybe lasers and smoke machines if we're feeling fancy. The show can't go on if we don't have all our shit together, and I will be heartbroken if that happens. Do we think we can handle this?"

Headphones nodded enthusiastically, while the other country troll just kind of shrugged.

"Good enough!" Barb had them sit and mentally went over who was left over. 

"I think that just leaves....Prissy Pants and Band-Aids."

The funk troll with the bandaged-up head and Priscilla perked up. 

"You two will be our groupies. Your job is real easy: worship the band. You'll be in charge of merchandise, which leads me to your first assignment, and one of the most important jobs of all: giving our band a real rockin' name."

Priscilla smiled at the job, but the funk troll raised his hand. "Uh, Miss S?"

"What's up?"

"I've been thinking, and I was wondering if I could play kazoo for the band?"

"...What's your name again?"

The kid grinned. "I'm Crumbles," he introduced, "they call me that because my brain's crumbling out of my head, they say."

Barb truly didn't know what to say to that. She looked at Priscilla, who shrugged. 

"Kazoo... isn't a bad idea," Barb managed to sputter out, "but, uh, why don't we worry about that once we come up with a good band name?"

"Oh, okay!" Crumbles replied with a thumbs up as he and Priscilla sat back down.

"And last but not least," Barb concluded, jabbing her thumb towards her chest, "I shall be the lead singer and shredding backup guitar.

"Are teachers even allowed to be in the band?" Gemma asked. 

Clampers agreed, "Yeah, I thought it was supposed to be a student project."

Barb froze for a moment, and only a moment, before a snarky remark overtook her. "What, are old people not allowed to rock? Are teachers not allowed to rock? Y'all got some weird prejudice against teachers?"

As the kids shook their heads, she continued, "That's what I thought. You know, some teachers like rockin', too. So not only am I gonna play, I am gonna be the leader of our awesome band. Now, everyone put your hand over your heart." Barb demonstrated, placing a hand over her own heart.

The kids obeyed quietly, watching with interest to see why Miss S was making them do this.

"Now repeat after me: I pledge allegiance-"

"I pledge allegience-" The students echoed.

"-to the band-"

"-to the band-" 

"-of Miss Schneebly-"

"-of Miss Schneebly-"

"-and will not fight-"

"-and will not fight-"

"-for creative control."

"-for creative control."

"I will listen to her musical guidance because she knows more than me in this area and I don't want to kill her artistic vision."

The kids mumbled incoherently, forgetting what they were saying about half a second aftere hearing it.

Barb looked at her kids and grinned pridefully. "Let's get rockin'!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the weirdest deja vu after writing this and it's driving me crazy. Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed this, next chapter's hopefully gonna be out soon. I'm not sure what else to say here, so I'll see y'all next time!!!
> 
> -CC


	4. The First Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barb begins the long and lengthy road to teaching these kids to become the best rockers in the entire city, a task muich easier said than done, she soon finds out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't really have a lot to say on this one, except thanks again to Nick and Nanite and the rest of the gay trolls server for like supporting me in this endeavor, like this is gonna be the longest fic that I've not only ever made but also plan on finishing. Y'all are the reason I do this and I really love hearing from y'all. Also full disclosure, I did steal Barb's song from the script of the movie, like I'm nowhere near good enough writer to come up with a song by myself, even a song that's supposed to be bad on purpose lol. Anyway, hope y'all like this chapter!

"Groupie?!?"

Barb turned around to find a very impatient Priscilla standing out side of her van, arms crossed and tapping her her foot angrily.

She slammed the door shut with a confused look. "What's the matter with you, kid?"

" _You_ want _me_ to be a _groupie_???" Priscilla asked again, obviously displeased at this notion.

Barb shrugged as she started heading for the school, beckoning Priscilla to follow her as she explained, "It's a very important job!"

"I looked up groupies on the internet last night."

_Oh fuck._

"They're just a bunch of sluts that sleep with the band!"

Trying to ignore that a child really shouldn't be looking into that kind of stuff because she didn't want the kid to think she was a narc or something, Barb insisted, "No, no, no, they aren't always like that; they're more like cheerleaders."

Priscilla huffed, "Well, maybe I don't _want_ to be a cheerleader!!!"

Barb groaned, stopping in her tracks and face-palming. This was why she never had kids. This, and the fact that she never held anyone down near long enough to even consider adoption.

"If my mother hears that I've gotten the measly role of cheerleader, she will not be pleased," She complained.

Uh oh, that wasn't an option. The parents' knowing what was going on would throw everything off course, and Barb out be out of a band, not to mention probably placed behind bars for impersonating a teacher. Luckily, Barb was quick on her toes, and knew how to satiate this crabby child. 

"Ok, ok, ok, here's the thing, kid," She started, trying to seem nonchalant, "I really didn't want to say anything in front of the other kids, but I actually have a very special job for you."

Priscilla quirked her eyebrow up. "Oh really? Is that so?"

"Oh, you-you know it, kid," She stammered, throwing on what she hoped was a reassuring grin, taking a knee to be at her eye level. "You, my dear, are going to have the most important job in the entire band: band manager."

"Band manager? What's that? What do I do?"

"It's more like what _don't_ you do, really. Basically, you're in charge of all the really important non-rocking stuff; setting up gigs, talking to directors, making sure all the band members are doing what they're supposed to be doing!"

Priscilla asked, "So what you're saying is I'm basically in charge of everything?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

She considered this for a moment with a hum, then replied with a smirk, "I gratefully accept the position, Miss S."

"Yeah, I had a feeling you might."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright class," Barb announced with a clap of her hands, looking out at the group of children in front of her. "First thing you do when you start a band is you gotta-"

"Miss Schneebly?" Priscilla asked with a raise of her hand. "Shouldn't I take attendance before we start?"

Barb grumbled a little bit under her breath and muttering, "If you feel that you must."

With a smile, Priscilla pulled a clip board out from her backpack and began to read off the names. "Keith?"

The kid with the weird eyes raised his hand. "Here."

Prisicilla checked his name off. "Winnie?"

The shy country troll that sat near the back sheepishly answered, "I'm h-here, Pris."

"Awesome! Uh, CJ?"

"Here!" The headphones troll piped up.

"Batty?"

The kid wearing a bat-eared cape over their uniform called out, "Present."

"Cool, Priscilla?-"

"Okay, okay, I think we're all here, kiddo," Barb interrupted, trying not to yell despite her thinning patience. "Also you don't need to call your own name out, like we know you're here."

Priscilla huffed and rolled her eyes, but returned her clipboard to her backpack regardless.

With her class once again paying attention to her, Barb started again, "Like I was saying, when you start up a band, one of the most important things you need to know is your influences. That's how we know what we want to sound like. So, what kind of stuff do you guys like listening to?"

"Taylor Swift?" Gemma piped up. 

"Haha, wrong answer. Uh, you got any ideas, Guppy?"

"Skrillex?"

"What, no! Keith?"

"Jack Stauber?"

"What the hell? You guys have ass taste in music! The project is called _Rock_ Band, for god's sake, don't you know any bands that rock? Like, I don't know, Led Zepplin!"

The students stared blankly at her.

"Y-You guys don't know Zepplin?"

There were a few shaken heads and a few shrugs.

"Okay, how about Sabbath?"

Silence.

"AC/DC?"

More silence.

"Motorhead?!?"

Oh-so deafening silence.

"ARGH!" Barb growled, slamming her fist on her desk, "What do they even _teach_ you at this place??"

She pointed out Priscilla. "You. You're class rep or whatever, right? Be a doll and write something down on the board for me, will you?"

Priscilla made a face, but regardless got up, went to the board and grabbed a piece of chalk. 

With Priscilla marking down her words, Barb explained, "Alright, so 8:15 to 10 will be Rock History, 10 to 11 is Rock Appreciation and Theory, and after lunch it'll be just Band Practice until the end of the day."

"What about math?" Priscilla asked, looking up from her handiwork, puzzled.

"Math," Barb replied, "is for pussies."

"What about world history?"

"Also for pussies."

"You're kidding me."

"Look, kids, we gotta focus if we want to win this competition," Barb huffed, running her hand through her shitty combover, "and like I don't know about you guys, but winning a prestigious competition like this is a pretty good idea, if I do say so myself."

Priscilla put down the chalk and questioned with a raise of her hand, "Then what are we going to do for grades if you're just gonna teach us this stuff?"

"Ok first of all, grades? They're pussy shit." Barb ignored the look of terror on Priscilla's face and continued, "We clearly have more important issues to deal with! Now, sit down so we can start."

Priscilla grumbled, "...Fine," obediently returning to her seat.

Clampers raised her hand and asked, "What are we gonna play?"

"We are going to be performing a piece that I wrote myself, so don't even worry-"

"Let's hear it."

Barb blinked. "...Huh?"

Amp repeated, "Let's hear your song. We wanna know what we're gonna play."

Barb looked at her class, a little confused. "Y-Y'all wanna hear my song?"

She received a series of nods and affirmative, "Yeah, sing us your song!"s in response.

"Alright, sure, I'll play it for you."

It was at that moment a wave of anxiety ran over Barb. She was confused; why was she feeling this way about performing for a bunch of literal children?

Regardless, she began stalling. "Just keep in mind, like, I wrote this in like 15 minutes, and it's not done yet, so just, uh, take it with a grain of salt-"

"Quit stalling, Schneebly, and play the song!" Clampers shouted from the back of the room.

Barb gave her a look and mumbled, "Fine, I _will_ play you my song, but not because you told me to."

She took a deep breath, and began to verbally unveil her vision.

"We start off with a pitch black stage.... and then.... a single beam light shines down from the ceiling on me and my guitar, and I start like _in the end of time.. there was a broad, who knew the road... and the writing, was written on the stone_ , and then a little bit of fog like comes up around my ankles- Uh, CJ and Winnie, this means dry ice, we can talk about that later- _in the ancient time, an artist led the way.... but no one, seemed to understand_ ," she vocalized a weird sound, explaining, "That's where I'm thinkin' we bring in some chimes, Clampers," before continuing, " _in his heart he knew, the artist must be true... but the legend of the rent, was way past due-_ "

Barb went on like this for about a minute. She'd sing her lyrics, which had _definitely_ no inspiration from her being kicked out of the band and forced to get a "real job", and she'd vocalize the sounds of whatever instrument was important at the moment (usually the guitar she'd be playing). Periodically, she'd interrupt herself and inform whatever kid of what their role would be during that specific part. 

The kids just kind of watched in confused awe; they genuinely didn't know what to say or even think.

After what felt like ages, Barb finally finished up by enunciating, "BOOM. EXPLOSION. And then, like, confetti falls from the ceiling and into the crowd. That's all I really got so far, still kinda workshopping it." 

She looked at her students with an excited grin. "So what do we think?"

The kids stared back at her wordlessly. It had certainly been.... a lot.

Priscilla, ever the kiss-ass, ultimately ended up speaking up, "I liked it, Miss Schneebly, I thought it was very catchy."

Barb gave a little dramatic bow. "Thank you, Prissy."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Miss Schneebly?"

Barb looked beside her in the lunch line to see Crumbles standing beside her, a notebook in one hand and his other scratching at his bandaged head.

"What's up, Crumbs?" She asked as she received a plop of mashed potatoes from the lunch lady.

He held up his notebook for her to see. "I, uh, wanted to share you some of my ideas for the band's name."

"Alright, shoot."

"The Huggle-Buddies?"

Barb held back a gag. "No way, it's too sissy."

"The Rainbow Team?"

"No, it's too sissy! We need a name that's hardcore, dude!" 

Barb noticed Poppy walking past her and quickly informed Crumbles, "I need to go talk to Miss Patterson real quick," ditching the lunch line to go talk to her.

"Miss Patterson, hey, hi, how, have you been?" Barb greeted.

Before Poppy could reply, Crumbles came up from beside Barb and asked her, "How about Pig Rectum?"

"Crumbles!"

"It's, uh, part of a science project," Barb quickly explained, turning back to Crumbles, "that we will be discussing later, now go eat your food, kiddo."

As Crumbles dutifully saluted and headed back to a table with his friends, Barb seized her opportunity to suggest, "So, uh, Poppy, I was thinking about taking these kids on a field trip."

"Well," Poppy hummed with a frown, "as a rule, substitutes do not organize field trips."

"Sure, but I just thought because I'm going to be here for a while, you know-"

"That's debatable," Poppy commented, her voice a bit strained, with a smile that did not ease the rising sense of discomfort Barb felt in the pit of her stomach.

Barb followed Poppy towards the teachers' table and asked, very obviously trying to change the subject, "Have you met any of the other teachers yet?"

"Well, no, but also I just think that the kids would learn a lot better if they got out of the classroom environment for a bit."

Poppy grimaced. "I-It's a lot more complicated than that; there's safety issues, parents need to be notified, it's against school policy-"

"Miss S!" Batty came running by and tugged on Barb's blazer sleeve excitedly. "What if we all dressed up as _vampires_?"

"Batty, I'm talking to the principal right now."

"Oh, hi."

"Hello, Batthew," Poppy greeted the child, "and please take that hood off, you know it's against school policy."

Batty begrudgingly removed their hood and left, but not before stage-whispering to Barb, "I'll whip up some samples for you." And then they were gone.

They had arrived at the teachers' table, with Poppy announcing to the other teachers, "Everyone, this is Riff Schneebly, she's filling in for Tug." She turned to Barb and explained, pointing to the other teachers, "Now, that one there is Milton Moss, he teaches second grade, and there's Gia Grooves, she teaches fourth, uh, Sky over there teaches gym, and Cybil is our librarian!"

The teachers waved and greeted Barb warmly, to which she returned an awkward wave and a smile. "'Sup?"

"Care to join us, Miss Schneebly?" One of them- Gia? Goddammit, Barb already forgot their names- asked politely.

"Uh, I don't see why not," Barb replied sliding into a chair awkwardly.

"Glad to see you settling in well, Riff," Poppy said cheerily, "but I actually need to go finish up some things in my office, so I hope you all have a great lunch!"

As she left and the other teachers said their goodbyes to her, Barb swallowed a groan. Getting this plan to work was proving to be more and more difficult.

"Hey, Miss Schneebly?"

Barb looked up at the purple troll who's name escaped her. 

"Before you came to sit with us, we were discussing testing, and we want to know your opinion on which is better: SCAS or the Bergen-Sturges."

 _ **FUUUUUUUUUUCK**_.

Barb cleared her throat with an awkward laugh, hoping they couldn't see the sweat forming on her forehead. 'W-Well, you see, I personally say no to testing, and I'll tell you why I say that, Martin-"

"It's Milton, actually."

"Milton. Right. Of Course. I say no to testing... because I believe that children...."

_C'mon, just make something up! You can't let the teachers know how full of shit you are!!!"_

"....are the future! Our children are the future, and it's our responsibility to, uh, train their minds in order for them to, uh, lead the way to their success! And you have to ask them, 'how do you plan on reaching your goals?' And I live by that."

Barb paused for a moment, thinking about what she'd just said.

"I think that's from a song, actually."

The other teachers just kind of stared at her. This teacher was.... rather unusual to say the least. 

"That's not from a song," Sky finally piped up, moments before he shoved his mouth full of mashed potatoes so he wouldn't have to talk to her again.

"I'm pretty sure it is, but I'll take your word for it."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

" _So you think you'll be just fine, without me, but you're mine... you think you can, kick me out of the band... well, there's just one problem there, the band is mine... how can you kick me out, of what is mine? _Now, everyobody!"__

__Band practice was in full swing. Amp, Coral, Clampers and Tiny were playing along with the sheet music Barb had given to them, focusing more on the sounds rather than their currently severely lacking stage presence. (Barb didn't mind too much; she could always teach them stage presence later.) Gemma sat nearby on top of one of the desks, holding a mic to sing backup. And the rest of the students were off on their personal projects, with CJ using the computer to start designing a light show and Keith making little cushioned pads to put in the cracks of the door to help muffle the sounds._ _

__Barb, shredding on her guitar, sang out her angry little song alongside the kids, " _Because you're not hardcore-__ _

Gemma echoed into her mic, " _But you're not hardcore!_ "

" _Unless you live hardcore-_ "

" _Unless you live hardcore!_ "

" _But the legend of the rent was way past hardcooooore!_ "

Barb suddenly stopped her playing and motioned for her kids to do the same.

When they paused and looked up at her, she began, "Okay, so that was great, everyone, I just have a few small notes, uh, Clampers," the country troll looked up from chewing on her drumstick, "that was fantastic, totally rockin' you're just getting a little bit sloppy, so be sure to tighten those screws, okay?"

Clampers responded with a thumbs up, drumstick still firmly planted in her mouth.

"Okay, uh, Amp, you're playing everything literally perfectly, you just seem really stiff for some reason? Like what are you, a robot? You gotta loosen up a bit, kid."

"I'm just playing how you told me to, though."

"And you're absolutely nailing it! But half of rock is feeling the music, not just playing it. Where's the joy if there's no passion behind your sound? Here's something we can try, we're gonna do what's called a power stance, okay?"

Barb positioned herself with her guitar, spreading her legs out a bit. "So you're gonna stand with your legs out like this." 

Amp cautiously copied her. 

"Yeah, just like that, and now can I hear an E?"

Amp played the note. 

"Perfect, but you see, what we're gonna do is we're gonna-" Barb strummed the note with ehr pick, which she then raised high above her head, "-just like that, raising your goblet to the kings of rock."

Amp nodded, strumming the note again, but this time circling her arm up and raising her pick high above her head.

"Great! And now we're just gonna add a little bit of flavor, let me see them wild eyes and a big scary grin!"

Amp obliged.

Barb pumped her fist in the air. "Alright! Now that's what I'm talkin about, Amplifier! Okay, we're gonna run this again from 'you're not hardcore,' sound good, guys?"

Band practice ran for a little while longer, but before long the end of the day had fallen upon them. Once they'd put all the rock supplies into the closets and cupboards, Barb had them all line up and began handing out CDs. 

"Your homework for tonight," She explained, "is to gather some inspiration from the forefathers of the art form that is rock. Especially with my musicians, I really want you guys to listen to these guys, I think they'll really help with your whole sound."

As Clampers received her CD, she pointedly asked, "Are we gonna screw around like this every day?"

"We're not screwing around, we're creating musical genius."

"Okay, are we gonna be doing _that_ everyday?"

"Hell yeah, get used to it."

Clampers nodded with a smirk. "Nice."

Barb handed out the rest of the CDs, ending with Amp, who seemed a little upset.

"Hey, what's up kiddo? Aren't you excited about the project?" She asked, genuine concern prevalent in her voice. 

"I mean, I guess..."

"You 'guess'? Amp, you're the lead guitarist in an epic rock band, what's more exciting than that?"

She shrugged. "I'll see you tomorrow," she mumbled, following the rest of her classmates out of the door. 

Barb sighed. She was not going to forget this. She was gonna find out what was bugging Amp.

"Miss S?"

Barb spun around to see an anxious Winnie, shifting her weight between her four feet as she fiddled with her backpack straps. 

"What can I do you for, Win?"

"I-I don't want to be a roadie!" She admitted suddenly, recoiling as if she expected that to be the wrong answer. 

Barb's concerned look from what was going on with Amp softened a bit and she tried to make herself sound very calm as she replied, "Ok. Is there like a specific reason you don't want to be a roadie, because roadies are very important."

Winnie looked away, playing with her fingers anxiously.

"I, uh, I want to, um, I wanna sing," She managed to stutter out.

Barb shrugged. "Alright, sing something for me, kiddo."

"Uh...."

She seemed really nervous at the idea of singing in front of her teacher, but Barb still gently pressed, "You know, I can't let you sing if I don't know what you sound like, Winnie."

Winnie nodded, and took a deep breath. And then she began. 

" _I cut my bangs with some rusty kitchen scissors, I screamed his name 'till the neighbors called the cops, I numbed the pain at the expense of my liver, don't know what I did next, all I know's I couldn't stop_ -"

"Okay I'm gonna need you to stop right there for a moment," Barb interrupted, her voice warbled and tears threatening to spill over in her eyes. "You have a phenomenal singing voice, Winnie!"

"Y-You really think so?" Winnie seemed astounded at the idea.

"Hell yeah I do! Why didn't you raise your hand when we asked for singers, you're in, kiddo!" She handed the country troll a CD. "There's a vocal solo at in 'The Great Gig in the Sky' that Gemma's also listening to, I think it will be really good for you to hear as well."

"Okay. Thanks, Miss S," She replied with a small smile, trotting out the door to catch up with her classmates.

As soon as she left, Barb let the tears flow feely and allowed a small cry to escape her throat. 

She swore, that little troll had the voice of an angel, and she was determined to help her see that for herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all for this chapter! Once again, not really sure what to put here this time, but I hope you all enjoyed! More of Barb Very Obviously Caring About These Kids But Not AdmittingIt will come next chapter, don't worry lol. But yeah, i'll see y'all next time!
> 
> -CC


	5. Schooling the System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barb continues to teach the kids, growing closer with them through the power of hating the public school system.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter of Barb bonding with children, which I know is like half the reason y'all show up sajdhgasgf. This chapter is broken up into a bunch of little scenes, hope yall dont mind too much. Anyway, I don't really have much to say, except once again thank you to the gay trolls server for enabling my fanfiction writing habits. also i stole another song from the script of the movie bc i don't know how to write songs, full disclosure there. Hope y'all enjoy!

Barb was up bright and early, which was a statement Riff had never thought we would say in his entire life. He was stunned to wake up and find Barb, not only conscious, but also fully dressed and finishing a bagel at the kitchen table. He watched as she swallowed the last bite, chugged down a glass of orange juice, and glance over towards him. 

"Oh hey, Riff!" She greeted with a grin, getting up from her seat. "I'd love to stay and chat but you know how it is, the grind never stops, haha!"

Riff just kind of stared at her, absolutely dumbfounded.

Barb ignored this completely as she headed out the door. "See you later, bud!"

Riff stood there in stunned silence for a moment, before turning around and reentering his bedroom, where a groggy Branch sat up in bed and yawned, unaware of his boyfriend's utter confusion.

"Babe, I think she's finally lost it."

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barb slammed the door to her van shut, running her fingers over her combover to make sure it covered all of her buzz as she began to make here way towards the school.

"Look, if you want to listen to your music, you have to finish your homework and chores, but I don't wanna hear about it before then. Hey! Don't just walk away from me when I'm talking to you! It's so incredibly rude."

Barb paused and looked over. It was an older woman, a rock troll that seemed to have strayed from the path of rocking and onto the path of corporate jobs, talking to, or more like scolding, none other than Amp. Amp looked tired, annoyed, like she'd heard this rant all too many times.

Her mom continued, "And don't forget; guitar practice comes after homework and chores and _only_ what Mr. Crescendo gives you, okay? No more of this... rock crap."

Barb's eye twitched at the words. No rock music? For a rock troll??? What kind of drugs was this lady on? Still, she didn't say anything, knowing that it would only embarrass Amp and maybe make things harder for her. Amp was lucky she managed to get her fraction of self control to work for once.

"Understood?"

"...Fine."

"Good, now head to class.:

Amp spun around on her heel and began to make her way towards the school, ignoring her mother's calls out to her, "And work on the attitude? Were you raised in a barn?"

Barb slowly began walking towards the school herself, hoping Amp's mom didn't notice her eavesdropping. This definitely made Amp's general hesitance to rocking out a bit more understandable, and Barb knew she had to do something to not only help her push past her mom's expectations, but also help her come out of her shell a bit.

The only remaining question was; how the hell was she gonna do that?

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Alright, kiddos, get to your seats, class has officially begun," Barb announced as she entered the classroom, the students eagerly taking their seats.

Barb noticed Amp seemed a bit grumpier than usual, her arms crossed in front of her as she leaned back in her chair with a scowl. 

Yeah, that wasn't gonna fly in this classroom.

Barb started, "You know, guys? I really am so proud of all the work you guys have been putting in. You're all doing real good in here. If I were the type of woman to care about grades, you'd all be getting an A."

"But you see," she continued, "that's just the thing; rock n roll isn't about perfection, it isn't about getting things right all the time. Can anyone tell me what rock is all about?"

Keith raised his hand. "Scoring chicks?"

"I mean, you'd think that, because it comes with the job a lot of the time, but no. Rock is a bit deeper than that. Crumbles?"

"Getting wasted?" he suggested.

"What? No! C'mon, guys. CJ?"

CJ considered this for a moment. "Sticking it to The Man?"

Barb pointed her out with a huge grin. "There we go! Sticking it to The Man! But it's not enough to just _say_ you're sticking it to the man, no, you gotta _feel_ it, in your guts, in your bones, in your blood. If you guys wanna really rock, you can't be afraid to break a couple rules. You gotta be mad at The Man, and right now," She pushed a bunch of papers aside on her desk and climbed atop it, standing proudly with her hands planted on her hips, "I am The Man."

The kids stared at her as she continued, "Yeah that's right, I'm the man, now do any of you posers have the guts to tell me off?!?!?"

There was a moment of hesitation before Clampers piped up from the back row, "Shut the hell up, Shneebly!"

"Yeah, that's the kind of righteous anger I'm looking for Clampers? Who's next?"

Coral shouted, "You fatass, get out of here! You're the worst!"

"Pretty good, Coral!"

Priscilla stood up from her seat and pointed an accusatory finger at Barb, crying out, "You're the worst teacher I've ever had in my entire life! You're a joke and I hope you get fired!"

Barb raised her eyebrows with amusement. "Wonderful execution, Priscilla! Really felt your inner demons crawling out."

"Thank you," she replied with a small curtsy before sitting back down.

"You're a lazy bum and also you smell bad!" Crumbles chimed in.

"Alright, okay, I think that's enough anger for now," Barb said warningly as she climbed off the desk. How these kids were so damn good at calling out her most sensitive insecurities? "Are we all nice and angry?"

"Yeah!!"

"Good, that means we're ready to write a sick rock song. What pisses you kids off more than anything else in the world?"

"You."

"Great suggestion, Batty, but we're all done joshin' on me at the moment," Barb explained as she picked up a guitar, "so anyone else got any suggestions? Tiny?"

"Uh, Not getting allowance?"

Barb strummed out a little ditty, singing, " _I didn't get no allowance today, and now I'm really pissed off._ You see what I'm saying? What else makes you guys mad?"

"Chores," Winnie piped up a little nervously.

" _I had to do my chores today, and now I'm really pissed off._ Anything else?"

Gemma suggested, "Bullies?"

" _All you bullies better get out my way, cuz I am really pissed off!"_ Now we just need an epic chorus. So, what would you say to a bully?" She pretended to look around for a volunteer before here eyes landed on Amp, who was still a bit moody. "Amp, you got any ideas?"

Amp looked up at Barb and shrugged. "I dunno...."

Barb looked at her, unconvinced. "C'mon now, you can do better than that! What's something you'd tell someone that's all up in your business?"

"I... don't know?"

"What are you gonna tell the person that won't stop pushing you around.

Barb watched as it clicked in Amp's head and she hesitantly replied, "...Step off?"

With a grin, Barb strummed out a few more chords and began chanting to the music, " _Step off! Step off! Step off! Step off!_ Everybody!"

The kids began chanting the "step off"s with Barb, even Amp, who joined in with a small smile.

Barb continued, " _If i do what you say, I might turn into a robot, do my chores day after day, and they don't want any lip, so step off! Step off! Step off! Step off!"_

She finished off the song with a high speed, but relatively simple, mini guitar solo and a headbang on the final note. "Yeah!" She chuckled a little, proud of her little rockers. "Now _that's_ how you make a totally epic rock song!" 

As the kids cheered at their successful song-writing session, Barb noticed Amp smiling at her. 

She grinned back. Mission accomplished. 

_\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

"So I'm about _this_ close to getting a position in the national philharmonic orchestra, absolutely nailed the audition, but then, wouldn't you know it, the organizer of the whole thing was the same guy I yelled at for spilling his coffee on me earlier that morning."

"You're kidding!" Milton mused, enthralled in her story.

"I'm telling you the honest to god truth," Barb lied. "So yeah, didn't get accepted, so I decided to fall onto my backup plan; teaching. You know, because those who can, teach, and those who can't teach Gym. Isn't that right, Toronto?"

Sky chuckled as the other teachers joined in on the well-intentioned taunting.

Barb assured him, "Haha, don't worry, I'm just messin' with you."

"Miss Schneebly?"

Barb turned her head to find Amp standing there, fiddling with the hem of her uniform jacket a little bit.

"What's up, Amp?"

"I just wanted to say I really appreciated the lesson today. It was super cool."

Barb felt something flutter up inside her at the flattery, saying, "Why, thank you, Amp!"

Amp nodded and added, "I'll see you in class," before hurrying back to her lunch table.

Barb noticed the entire lunch table staring at her in awe, shocked that that had just happened in front of them. She gave a sheepish smile and a shrug. "Kids, amirite?"

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the next couple weeks, Barb worked hard with her kids. 

In the mornings, she'd teach them as much as she could about rock, how and why it was made, and its subgenres; heavy metal, glam, prog, punk, classic, and everything in between. She even did her best to show how rock connected to genres they already knew and were familiar with, such as pop, country, and techno.

In the afternoons, during band practice, she'd take one on one time with each of the kids, even the non-musicians, and help them perfect their craft, or at least improve their style. She'd bring in videos or do physical demonstrations of the most iconic rock moves, helping the kids get a bit more comfortable with the general vibes of rock.

Truly, though, she didn't really think the kids needed her assistance too much. Barb saw the ease that the music and the technology came to them all. They all had such incredible natural talent and it made her weirdly happy to be able to help them all with it.

Barb didn't understand this feeling, but she decided she was gonna roll with it as she kept working with the kids, the date to audition for Battle of the Bands growing ever closer.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Tell me one drummer better than Sheila E, and then maybe I'll consider your argument."

"Bill Bruford?"

"He can't drum."

"He's better than you, he's actually got rhythm."

Clampers rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at Tiny. Not like he knew anything about drummers anyway.

They were sitting in the hallway on some steps, trying to pass time before class officially started. Miss S was nowhere to be seen, so they figured they could just chill for a bit.

Poppy walked over, just passing through, presumably to go to her office and slowed down, visibly confused, upon seeing Clampers. She asked, "Clampers, what happened to your shirt? And your hair?"

Clampers had taken the time to rip the sleeves off her uniform shirt, her tie loosened severely and her jacket nowhere to be found. Her hair was in its usual pigtails, but she'd teased the hell out of them, making them look like big ratty poofs. 

"It's called punk," she replied bluntly.

"Well, it's not school uniform," Poppy reminded her, leaning down to meet the sitting child's eye.

Before she could continue to chew out Clampers for violating the dress code, Keith piped up, "Miss Patterson, you're the man."

Poppy smiled. "Thank you, Keith." She continued her way to her office, oblivious to the snickers and giggles of the children as she left.

In her office, the majority of the faculty was waiting for her. Barb stood near the back of the room, filling a paper cup up from the coffee machine.

"Hello, everyone," she greeted with a cheery grin, "I just wanted to remind everyone that Parents' Night is coming up real soon, and I expect you all to have a presentation prepared-"

Barb yelped as her hand involuntarily jerked at the word 'presentation' splashing some boiling hot coffee onto her hand. The moment the noise left her throat and everyone began staring at her, she grabbed a little container of creamer and squeezed it onto her hand.

"Riff, is everything alright?"

"Oh yeah, no worries, hehe. By all means, please continue."

Poppy did just that. "Right. As we all know, it is one of the most important, if not _the_ most important, nights of the year, and it shows the parents why they give us the money to keep running this school, so I want everyone to remember that it's better to be overprepared than underprepared."

Barb gulped as Poppy's eyes fell directly onto her, only for a moment of course, before moving on to stare at some other poor unlucky soul. 

This wasn't ideal; Parents' Night meant Poppy would be on her ass 10 times harder than before, which would make practice and performing infinitely harder. She had to think of a way to fix this.

Poppy dismissed them from there, and as she talked to some of the other teachers, Barb leaned over to Cybil, the librarian, and asked, "Is she like this all the time?"

Cybil shrugged. "Pretty much, though there was this one time at an alumni dinner.."

Barb leaned in. "Oh really? By all means, do tell."

Cybil checked to make sure no one else, especially Poppy, was listening, before explaining, her voice hushed, "She got so drunk that she got up on the table and started dancing around and singing like Stevie Nicks. It was insane; she sounded _just_ like Stevie!"

"Huh," was all Barb could think to reply as Cybil noticed one of her friends and walked of to talk to her before class started. She looked back over at Poppy, at her formal, neutral clothes and her hair always tucked into that big pink bun. 

She tried to imagine her, drunk, at a party, dancing on top of a table, maybe with her hair down, dancing and singing along to Stevie Nicks-

Barb shoved that image down immediately, a flush running over her face as her heart began to race. _What the hell? Where the fuck did *this* feeling come from?_

Luckily, the bell rang just then, telling everyone that class was going to start soon and to head towards their classrooms.

Barb sighed in relief as she began to walk down out of the office and down the hall to her room. She'd deal with these thoughts and feelings, wherever the hell they came from, after she taught her kids more about the good word of rock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It only took half the story but we are FINALLY getting a crumb of parb in this story, so by all means enjoy. Also if you thought that last line was a reference to the fanfic (The Good Word of Rock) you'd be absolutely right i caught up on that the other day lmao. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this chapter, the next few is when we really start getting into exciting plot stuff, so be ready >;3  
> See y'all in the next one!
> 
> -CC


	6. The Audition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barb sneaks the kids out to go audition to be in the Battle of the Bands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we're really getting into the meat of things! The next few chapters is where the plot really starts to pick up. Also the next chapter we're gonna be dabbling in some gay shit ;) But yeah, thanks again to the gay trolls server especially for their continued support of my constant bullshit lmao, but also for just being some of the raddest people I know. Minor CW for vague inferences to child abduction in this chapter (better safe than sorry, ya know). Hope y'all enjoy!

As she pulled up to the side of the school with her van, Barb wiped a bit of sweat from her brow as she checked her watch, her eyes darting towards the side entrance periodically. 

_C'mon, c'mon, where are they? We need to go like **now**! We only have one shot at this, and we can't screw it up when we're so close..._

The side door opened and Priscilla popped her head out cautiously.

She caught Barb's eye, who began gesturing for her to hurry up and get into the car. "C'mon, let's go!"

Priscilla turned behind her and whispered, "We're clear," and she and the rest of the musicians bolted from the door and scurried into Barb's van. Priscilla took shotgun while the rest of them huddled in the back. 

Barb turned around in her seat to face the kids. "We ready for this?" 

She was met with a small chorus of "Hell Yeah"s and cheers.

She smirked. "Alright then, kids, strap in, it's time to get this show on the road!

And with that, she peeled out of the school grounds, her tires squealing as she tore down the road.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poppy sighed as she meandered through the halls. Every day seemed to take a heavier toll on her, but she refused to give in to the negativity just yet; she wanted these kids to have a good foundation for their futures, and she'd stop at nothing to make sure they got that.

She passed by Miss Schneebly's room and heard her saying, "Okay so Columbus sailed the ocean blue in what year again?"

"1492," came a chorus of kid's voices.

Poppy decided to lean in and listen to the lesson, just to get an idea for what her lesson was, of course. No other reason.

"Great job, kids, 1492. So Columbus had three boats, one was the Niña, one was the...... anyone have any guesses? Keith?"

"The Pinta?"

"Yes, the Pinta, and then what was the last one, Batty?"

"The Santa Marina."

"Very close, it's actually the Santa _Maria_ but you were very close."

Poppy smiled as she turned and began walking back towards her office. She'd had her doubts about Riff Schneebly, for sure, in fact she still kind of did, but there was something about her that made Poppy a bit more inclined to trust her. And the children seemed so receptive to her, both in and outside of the classroom, so she had to assume she was doing something right.

That didn't explain the lingering thoughts she sometimes found herself having in the deep hours of the night, though.

Unbeknownst to Poppy, however, the kids were not, in fact learning about Columbus; partially because one of the few things Barb actually managed to tell them related to the curriculum was that Columbus was like the actual worst, but mainly because CJ had set up a computer monitor playing a video of Barb teaching a lesson, and the few non-musician students that remained behind would reply to the video as if Barb were really there.

Keith sat on the far side of the room, watching from a monitor connected up to a security camera set up in the hallway as Poppy left the hall. He turned to CJ and gave her the heads up to pause the video. "We're clear."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It didn't take long for them to reach the theatre where auditions were being held. It was an older building, with an old school letterboard surrounded by a border of lights, half of which were broken. Still, it was one of the less deteriorated buildings in the area, and Barb parked her van in a nearby lot, where a bunch of other bands' vans also stood.

They unloaded their equipment and strutted their way into the theatre, ignoring the surprised stares of competitor bands.

One of them leaned in to one of their buddies and jeered, "What's with all the kids, bro? Thought this was Battle of the Bands, not the Disney Channel Power Hour."

As she passed by, Clampers glared at him and snapped, "Piss off. Don't you have anything better to do than make fun of a bunch of kids?"

The guy's friend snorted with laughter, the guy taking a step forwards and spat, "You think you're real tough, don't you, shortstop?"

"Tougher than you, maybe. Why don't you pick on someone your own size, you bi-"

"Hey, hey, hey, ease it up, feistypants," Barb interrupted, taking Clampers by the arm and leading her away from the opponents, not before shooting them a sharp look that told them to back off her kid. 

As they walked away from those douches, Barb added, "You can't let the competition psyche you out, we already know we're good enough and we don't need their approval. But we can't nail this audition if they kick us out for starting shit with the other bands."

Clampers sighed and nodded. She supposed that made sense, and she didn't want to be the reason that they got kicked out.

Barb and the kids set themselves up in a little side hallway to wait their turn to go into the audition. The kids were chattering amongst each other, sitting on top of their amps and other cases of equipment, when Barb felt a small tug on the sleeve of her blazer and a nervous voice squeaking out, "M-Miss S?"

Barb turned around to find Winnie staring at the ground, shifting her weight between her feet anxiously. "I- I don't think I can sing..." she admitted, refusing to make eye contact.

"What? What are you talking about, Win?"

Winnie didn't answer, still pacing uneasily. 

Barb was suddenly very aware of the amount of people in the room just then, most of whom were complete strangers a lot older than her kids. This was not an ideal environment for a heart-to-heart, especially with this child in particular.

She gently grabbed Winnie by the hand, mumbled, "C'mon," and led her through the halls, looking for somewhere a bit farther away from all the people. It didn't take long for Barb to find an empty stairwell that lead to the theatre balconies, which in her experience were never ever used. 

She sat Winnie on the stairs and took a seat beside her, asking, "Alright, what's all this about, kiddo? What do you mean you can't sing?"

Winnie shrugged. "I dunno, I feel sick... just let Gemma do my part..."

"What? No! Gemma's wonderful, but she can't sing like you, Winnie!" Barb insisted. "I really need you here. The _band_ needs you!"

Winnie didn't answer, just stared at her hands as she fiddled with the skin on her fingertips.

"Are... are you nervous?"

A small nod.

 _Alright, now we're getting somewhere._ "Okay... why? You have such a beautiful voice. What are you afraid of?"

Hesitation, then, "...They're gonna laugh at me."

"Why would they laugh at you?"

Another shrug. "I dunno.... because country trolls aren't supposed to sing rock."

_Bingo._

Barb scoffed, "You think that a little genre-bending is gonna make people laugh at you? Winnie, genres are just the guidelines, you don't have to follow one single path of music."

"R-Really?"

"Hell yeah! One of my buddies in college, his name was Dickory, he was born a yodeling troll, and-"

"There are yodeling trolls?!?"

"There are as many genres of troll as there are sounds to hear, my dear. But yeah, Dickory was a yodeling troll, but whenever he decided to play with my band for a night or two, he would play the most _epic_ guitar solo you'd ever heard in your life. Just because he was a yodeler didn't mean he didn't know how to totally rock it when the moment was right."

"Woah...." Winnie was awestruck by this revelation.

"And that's not even considering his brother! His younger brother, Hickory-"

"Wait, so their names were Hickory _and_ Dickory?"

"Yeah, apparently yodeling trolls aren't the most creative when it comes to names, haha," Barb said with a shrug. "But anyway, Hickory ended up transitioning from yodeling to country a little bit after we all graduated. He still yodeled a little bit, of course, but he figured out that he was more comfortable singing country, and everyone was really supportive of his choice."

"Really?"

"Heck, even my roommate's annoying boyfriend, Branch; he's genrefluid and really vibes to anything! Pop, country, funk, you name it, he'll sing it. Well, except my music, he doesn't really like me all that much..."

"Oh."

_Ah, shit, got too personal with it, gotta reel it back in._

"Look, my point here is, Win, you don't have to follow the one single genre path you were born into. You can branch out to as many genres as your little heart desires." She rested a hand on Winnie's shoulder. "You're a rock star now, kid, even if you're not a rock troll. You just gotta rock your little heart out and I promise that people are gonna totally dig you. So, I think we gotta show these folks what we got. What do you say?"

Winnie thought about it for a moment, then nodded with a small smile. "Okay."

Barb grinned back at her. "Hell yeah! Now let's get to rockin'!"

She got to her feet before turning and outstretching a hand to help Winnie back up.

"Miss S?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

Barb felt a warm fluttering in her chest as she pulled Winnie to her feet and led her back towards everyone else. "S' no problem, kid."

She led Winnie back to the area their little group was camping out in, announcing to her kids, "Alright, we are good to go!"

"No we're not, Clampers took off," Priscilla informed her with a roll of her eyes.

Barb's heart stopped. "Where?!?"

"She ran off with some guys to their van."

"WHAT." Barb's eyes were practically bugging out of her head. "And you didn't think to stop her?!?!"

Priscilla shrugged.

"Goddammit, stay here!" She commanded her kids as she went off to look for Clampers.

She speedwalked into the parking lot and peeked inside her own van. No Clampers, of course, but it was worth a shot.

"Clampers?!" She called out, her heart racing as she peeked into the windows of parked, desperate to find her kid. 

She asked passing bands, "Hey, have you seen a little kid around, country troll, about yeh tall?" She'd rush off before they had a chance to answer though, her mind to panicked to think properly.

She continued this for a bit, peeking inside other vans, asking others for help, but usually just shouting Clampers name in hope of a response of sorts.

It finally cumulated in her yelling out, "Dammit, Clampers, this is your teacher speaking!"

"Oh, hey, Miss S."

Barb's head snapped around to find Clampers waving at her from inside of a van, completely unharmed. She had a bunch of cards in her hands, and seemed to be playing some sort of game with another band. 

Barb clutched her chest and allowed herself to let out a sigh of relief, glad her kid was okay. Then, of course, she put on her Serious Teacher Face. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Nothing, really, just chilling, playing some poker."

Barb pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to keep her temper contained for once in her life. "Clampers, you get out of that van this instant," she demanded.

Clampers rolled her eyes, but regardless complied, mumbling a little "see you guys," to her new 'friends'.

As she watched Clampers climb out of the van, Barb snapped quietly at the band, "What the hell is wrong with you guys? The kid's 10! You can't just party with an unsupervised 10 year old!"

One the band members shrugged. "We were just chilling, man."

"Do you have any idea what your actions are teaching her? She looks up to you guys as a role model and you're corrupting her innocent little mind! You all should be ashamed of yourselves."

She took Clampers by the arm and began to lead her back into the theatre, but not before calling out over her shoulder, "And don't hang out with literal children! It's super fucking creepy!"

Clampers hissed, "What's your deal, teach? You're starting to sound like my aunt."

"Dude, haven't you ever heard of Stranger Danger? You had me worried sick that you were gonna get seriously hurt!"

"I was just trying to hang out with some real rockers."

Barb scoffed, "Those weren't real rockers, they were posers. Rock isn't about getting loaded and being a jerk. You, your friends and I are real rockers."

Clampers just huffed, crossing her arms indignantly. 

Sighing, Barb stopped her outside of the theatre doors and took a knee to be at eye level with her. "Look, we're on a serious mission here, yeah? Putting on an epic show is the most important part of being a rocker. You know, one awesome rock show can really change the world."

"You really think so?"

And in that moment, Barb was taken back to many many years before, where she was just a little nervous kid perched atop her dad's shoulders at her first rock concert. She'd asked him what was so special about this concert, and he'd just chuckled as the band started up. They began their first song and Barb found herself surrounded by the head and volume of the music in a way she just hadn't experienced music before. It was truly a transforming experience. And even if her dad had to yell in order for her to hear anything for days afterward, she wouldn't have traded that day for the world.

"Trust me kid, I know so. But seriously, you need to be there for the rest of your band. If we got called to audition and our drummer wasn't there, you'd really let everyone down. Do you understand?"

Clampers considered this and slowly nodded. "Yeah."

"Good, now let's get inside!"

Barb led the girl into the theatre, mumbling under her breath, "If you ever scare me like that again I swear to god I'm making Crumbles our new drummer."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As they band entered the theater, they couldn't help but gape in awe at the sight. Their school auditorium had _nothing_ on this place; the stage was bigger, there were more seats, and there was even a balcony section.

The kids whispered amongst themselves about how cool everything was, but then Barb noticed audition people starting to pack their things up.

"Okay, guys, wait here a moment, I'm gonna talk to these guys," Barb told her kids as she headed over towards the table.

"Hey, what's going on here? Where is everyone?"

One of the staff, an orange country troll with blue hair, smiled sadly and informed her, "Auditions are over, sorry."

Barb's heart sank. "What? No! Who's in charge here?"

The country troll hesitantly pointed out a rock troll with some epic blue liberty spikes.

Barb walked up to this guy and complained, "Hey man, auditions can't be done yet, you haven't even heard my band!"

The rock troll sighed, "Sorry, dude, we're already overbooked as it is."

"C'mon, one song! Just let us play one song for you! I mean, we're all here and ready!" She gestured out to her small army of kids.

"What's with the kids?"

"They're my band."

Mr. Liberty Spikes narrowed his eyes. "Is this some kind of weird prank?"

Barb looked offended that he even needed to ask, insisting, "No! They might be kids, but they can really play! Just give us a chance!"

"Sorry, but," he gave the kids a quick once over, just to make sure he was really seeing this, "you're really not what we're looking for."

Barb was adamant, "These kids have worked their fingers to the bone just to play one song for you, and goddammit you're gonna let them play it!"

The guy looked at Barb, looked at the kids, and sighed.

He turned to the country troll. "Holly, call security."

Barb visibly deflated. "Don't even bother," she mumbled, turning on her heel and defeatedly walking back towards her band.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barb stared absently at the other side of street. She couldn't believe it was really over.

She'd pulled her van up to the front of the theatre so that the kids could help her start packing it up again while she sat on the curb, her elbows rested on her knees.

Priscilla came over and sat down beside her. "Don't stress about it too much, Miss S," she assured her, "this was just a warm up. We still have the school competition."

"Don't you get it, Prissy? This _was_ the gig, this was supposed to be our big show!" Barb groaned, burying her face in her hands.

"Well, then we shouldn't take no for an answer!" Priscilla replied adamantly.

"Kid, they were gonna call the cops! Or were you not listening to that guy?"

"You're not listening to me!" Priscilla lowered her voice with a devilish grin unlike anything Barb had ever seen on the kid before. "I have an idea."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Demo stepped into the lobby with a sigh. He'd had a long day of listening to bands, and they were for the most part really good, but he just wanted to go home and sleep for a few days.

That's when the weird lady that brought in the kids suddenly appeared out of practically nowhere in front of him.

"Woah, woah, hey, I promise I'm not here to cause any trouble," she assured him, her hands raised in surrender. "It's okay, it's cool, I just wanted to apologize for my actions back there. It wasn't fair to you, and it wasn't fair to the kids, especially with what they've been through." She wiped her face with her hand, adding, "God, I feel like such an ass, god. I'm taking them back to the hospital, but I wanted to stop in and apologize first."

Demo looked at her kind of weird. "Alright, thanks, I guess."

_Shit, he didn't take the hook! Time be obvious and make him uncomfortable!_

"You see, I do volunteer work down at St. Fuzzbert's in the children's wing, I teach music," Barb explained, following this guy towards the exit.

Demo, who was confused as to why this chick was still talking to him, awkwardly commenting, "Oh yeah? That's nice, that's real nice."

Barb shook her head with a grimace. "Actually, it's not nice, really, because I totally messed up." She stopped at the door and looked out across the street, where her kids were sitting on the curb next to her parked van. They all had a look of absolute forlorn drawn across their tiny faces.

"I told the kids if they practiced real hard, they'd get into Battle of the Bands."

Demo looked at the kids for a moment, then turned to Barb. "Why'd you tell them that?"

Barb scowled, very clearly pissed at herself. "I don't know," she admitted, facepalming, "I just, I wanted to give them something to look forward to, you know? To help keep their spirits up. Just look at them."

The two watched as Amp suddenly burst into tears, and Tiny and Coral instantly leaned in to comfort her.

"They're terminal."

Demo turned to Barb with a small gasp.

She looked at him and solemnly nodded her head. "Every last one of them."

"Jeez..."

"Yeah, and the last thing they wanted to do before they bit the dust was to play in Battle of the Bands..."

"What do they all have?"

 _Shit._ "It's, uh, a rare blood disease, it's called...... stick-it-to-The-Man-iosis."

Demo furrowed his brow. "W-What's that? I've never heard of it before."

"Well, then you're one of the lucky ones, I guess," Barb replied, returning her gaze to the kids. "Because it's hell."

"Wow..."

The kids watched as Barb left the theatre, looking glum as ever. As she got closer though, her frown slowly morphed into a massive grin and gave them a subtle thumbs up. "We're on the bill!"

The kid's faces lit up and they began to cheer, only for Barb to remind them "No, No, you're all dying, remember?!?"

They quickly shifted their expressions to those of the fatally ill, some coughing a few times to really sell it as they climbed into the van.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the band rode back the school, Barb blasted her radio, bobbing her head to the beat. The kids mimicked her in the back, vibing as Barb began to sing. 

" _So, this ain't the end, I saw you agaaaaaiiiin today, I had to turn my heart away.... Smile like the sun, kisses for eeeeeeeeeeeeeveryone, and tales, it never fails.... you're lying so low into the weeeeeeds, I bet you're gonna ambush meeeee, you got me down, down, down, down, down on my knees,_ now sing it with me, kids!"

"BARRACUDA!" They all cried out as one, giving Barb a good chuckle. 

She turned to Priscilla, sitting in shotgun. "Priscilla, for your epic quick thinking today, you get an A+ and 50 gold stars!"

Priscilla shook her head and smirked, informing her teacher, "I didn't do it for the grade."

Barb quirked her eyebrow up. "Oh really?"

Priscilla nodded. "Grades are for pussies."

Barb barked out a laugh and stuck her fist out for her kid to bump. "Hell yeah! Now that's what I like to hear, Prissy!"

Priscilla bumped her fist into Barb's and the van blasted rock tunes the entire way back to school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all get a special extra long chapter today lmao. But yeah hope you all enjoyed this! I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. But yeah, I don't really have much to say here except that the next chapter is when we're finally gonna really start digging into the parb >:3c See y'all next time!!!
> 
> -CC


	7. Not A Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In order to guarantee her "field trip" to Battle of the Bands, Barb takes Poppy out for drinks. Not as a date, though. It's not a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, DORKS. HERE COMES THE SWEEET SWEET PARB YOU ALL HAVE BEEN SO PATIENTLY WAITING FOR. WE'RE REALLY IN IT NOW BABES. Thanks to the gay trolls server again for hyping me with with each update but uh yeah. These bitches gay.

"Uh, hey, Miss S?"

Barb looked up from her desk to find Crumbles staring at her, scratching at his head bandages with a paper in his hand. 

It was a few days until Battle of the Bands, and everyone was anxiously preparing. They'd begun having all day band practice just to to get a bit more rehearsal time in, and even the non-musicians were focused on perfecting their areas of work.

"I've got a name for our band."

"Oh rad, hit me with it."

He handed her the paper. It had the Mountain Ridge Elementary school emblem on it, but instead of its usual design, there was lightning bolts and a little guitar inside the the crest and the words "in school we rock" written inside of a ribbon thing flowing down the sides. Above the symbol, was the best band name Barb had ever seen, far better than Rock Tooth.

"The School of Rock."

"The School of Rock...." Barb echoed, slowly getting up from her desk and looking at the students in front of her, who looked up from their own work to see what Miss S was about to do this time.

"And we shall teach rock 'n roll to the world..." she whispered, a grin slowly creeping onto her face.

"Hold it, we got a red alert," Keith announced, looking at the security monitor. "It's Patterson."

Barb snapped out of her awestruck daze and clapped her hands together. "Alright kids, just like we practiced!"

The kids got up from their seats and scrambled to to hide all their equipment. They pushed the drum set and the amps into the closet, with the guitars being piled in not long after. Keith ripped his homemade soundproofing pads off the door and hid them in a cupboard. Barb hastily erased the board, removing any evidence of music notes or ideas for epic songs.

As soon as everything was hidden ,the kids raced to their desks just as the doorknob turned.

Principal Poppy Patterson entered the room to find Barb writing on the board and explaining to her class, "...and that, kids, is why E=MC squared." She turned her head and saw Poppy standing in the doorway. "Oh, hello, Miss Patterson! By all means, please come in."

"I'm so sorry to interrupt, Miss Schneebly," Poppy explained as she entered the room, "but Mr. Moss said he heard music coming from the classroom."

Barb put on her best confused face. "Music? I- I haven't heard any music all day! Perhaps Mr. Moss needs to get his ears checked out, right kids?"

Poppy's eyes fell on something on the other side of Barb's desk and pointed it out. 'Well, what's that?"

Barb turned to find a forgotten guitar, sitting in a stand. 

_Shit._

"Oh yeah, that. Well, um, you see-"

Thankfully, it was an acoustic, which gave Barb a great idea for a cover story.

"-We were s-singing. We were singing and learning," Barb said as she reached over her desk and grabbed the guitar from its stand. "W-We were learning through sing-song."

Poppy's eyebrows furrowed. "One of your methods?"

Barb nodded. "Y-Yeah. I find it it very helpful when teaching more, um, boring lessons," she explained, slinging the strap over her shoulder.

"I see. So you wouldn't mind if I sat in on this afternoon's lesson?"

Barb hesitantly replied, "...Yeah, sure, feel free to come back this afternoon."

Poppy blinked. "It is currently the afternoon. I meant now."

"R-Right, of course." Barb could feel the sweat dripping down her forehead as Poppy walked to the back of the classroom, standing with her arms crossed and wearing a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

With a nervous gulp, Barb strummed down on the strings and began to sing a little ditty. " _Math is truly the greatest, math is a wonderful thing, so it's time to get up off your ath, we're about to do some math!_ " 

She walked across the front of class, singing, " _Math, math, math, math, math,_ " as until she stopped in front of Priscilla and began, "So three minus four is..?"

"Negative one." Priscilla answered.

"That's right! _And six time times a billion is...?_ " she continued, shooting a look at Coral.

"Six billion?" he guessed.

"Nailed it kiddo. _And then fifty four is forty five more than...? What is the answer, Keith?_ "

"Nine," he replied.

Barb shook her head and corrected, " _No, it's eight._ "

Keith narrowed his eyes and sang back, " _No, it's nine..._ "

_Wait, shit, it is nine. ___

__" _...I was just testing you, it's nine, and nine is a magic number._ "_ _

__\--------------------------------------------------------------------------_ _

__The rest of the afternoon went fairly uneventfully, with Barb using her 'method' to basically quiz the kids on basic math equations. Before long, the school day was over and the class was dismissed. Poppy and Barb walked out of the building together as a small sea of kids spilled out around them._ _

__"I will admit, I'm very happy that you've been able to extend your stay for the time being," Poppy said as she and Barb walked down the front steps, "but I also must say that I do find your teaching methods rather unusual."_ _

__"Well," Barb shrugged, her hands planted in her blazer pockets, "I _did_ study with the infamous Gristle Von Bergensteinmeister."_ _

__"Who?"_ _

__"Oh you've never heard of him?"_ _

__Poppy shook her head._ _

__"Well, he's the leading scholars in.... unusual teaching methods," Barb lied, hoping she made this guy sound legit enough. "Actually, he's the one that appointed me to the Presidential Council of Unconventional Teaching."_ _

__"Well, that all sounds very impressive, but we're not really interested in experimental education at this school," Poppy explained with a strained smile, "so if you could just stick to the curriculum, that would be just great."_ _

__Barb pursed her lips and answered, "Yes, right, of course," despite not having any intentions of doing so._ _

"Thank you."

Barb realized that this was a golden opportunity to ease Poppy into the idea of letting her take the kids on a 'field trip'. She couldn't let this moment pass her by!

“Hey, Poppy?”

“Hmm?”

“You know, I’m actually really interested in your philosophy on teaching, did you maybe want to grab a coffee?”

Poppy looked taken aback. “Y-You want to get coffee with me?”

Barb nodded. “Yeah, yeah I would.”

Poppy blushed a little bit as she said, “Well, um, yes, yes I think that sounds great.”

Barb grinned at that, ignoring the fluttering feeling in her chest.

————————————————————————————————————————————

The waiter slammed two large mugs of beer in front of them, much to Poppy’s very visual displeasure.

"A-And you're sure you don't have coffee?" Poppy asked hesitantly.

The waiter snorted with a smirk. "Oh, sweetie, I'm quite sure," he snarked as he walked back to the bar.

Poppy sighed and took the bug in both her hands, looking around at the establishment around her.

Despite it still being fairly early in the day, the bar was packed with lots of people, who wear lots of leather and heavy makeup. They looked at Poppy with confusion, so she just stared at the beer in front of her, glancing up to ask Barb something only to find her chugging half her beer.

Barb had decided that a rock bar, one she'd performed at once or twice, actually, was the perfect place to really pull Poppy into her comfort zone. Or at least, _Barb's_ comfort zone, but based on what Cybil had mentioned at the staff meeting, she had a hunch that Poppy wasn't everything she appeared to be.

Poppy took the tiniest sip of her beer and cleared her throat. "I gotta say, I've never been to this place before," she said with a nervous laugh.

Barb set down her mug with an understanding hum.

"In fact, I don't think I've ever been on this side of town.... Do, uh, do you come here often?"

Barb shrugged. "Not necessarily here specifically, but I'm more used to this side of town as it is. Grew up around these parts," she explained, unusually honest for once.

Poppy nodded, and took another little sip of her beer before starting, "So Miss Schneebly-"

"Oh, please, call me Barb," Barb interrupted out of habit.

Poppy furrowed her eyebrows. "Barb?"

Realizing her mistake, Barb quickly backtracked, "Oh shoot! That was one of my nicknames from before my t-transition, I keep forgetting. But n-no, my name is, in fact, Riff. Please call me Riff."

With a polite laugh, Poppy assured her, "Oh, I completely understand, I used to do that all the time after I transitioned."

Barb was suddenly feeling very guilty about using the transition excuse, but smiled and nodded anyway, mumbling a quick, "Thank you."

Poppy seemed to get very nervous as she then asked, "Well, uh, based on your extensive education experience, how does Mountain Ridge compare to the other schools you've taught at.

"Oh, you guys are by far the best," Barb smirked.

"You're just saying that."

"But really, it's true!" Barb insisted. "All the other schools I've been to, all the kids just. run around and play all day! There's no discipline, no order, absolute anarchy. Your kids are some of the best kids I've ever taught."

"I'll drink to that," Poppy chucked, clinking her mug to Barb's and taking a big sip, seeming to loosen up the tiniest bit.

Barb stood up from her seat and said, "Stay here, I'm gonna go throw on some music."

"O-Oh, okay!"

As Barb made her way towards a tiny little jukebox in the corner of the bar, Poppy quietly drank her beer. She was really quite the lightweight, and probably shouldn't be drinking at all, but it was only one drink, how bad could it really be?

Barb flipped through the the options on the jukebox, looking for something, anything, that would impress Poppy, and then she found the perfect song. She grinned, and pressed a few buttons on the machine, watching as the miniature records flipped around for a bit before picking a specific one out and placing it on the turntable.

As Barb returned to the table, the song, Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks, began to play, and Poppy's eyes widened and a huge smile crawled onto her face. 

"Oh my gosh, I love this song!" She whispered excitedly as Barb slid back into her seat.

"Really?" Barb asked, feigning ignorance.

"Yessssss, Stevie Nicks is, like, my favorite!"

"She's so good."

"You know," Poppy continued, pausing to take another sip of beer, swaying to the music a little bit in her seat, "she actually did a concert a years back, and I went and it was just..... incredible, absolutely incredible."

"Oh really?" Barb raised an eyebrow. "You didn't seem like the kind of person to like concerts, Poppy."

"What can I say, Riff? You don't know everything about me," Poppy replied with a wink. The alcohol was definitely starting to take its toll on her, but she found that she didn't mind all that much.

Barb chuckled, her face flushing slightly as Poppy continued, "She put on just this fantastic show, watching it live was _so_ much better than listening to the album."

"Oh yeah, for sure," Barb agreed, "there's just no comparison."

"There really isn't."

"Man, I'd really love to take the kids to a concert sometime," Barb mused, resting her hand on her chin and her elbow on the table, her eyes watching Poppy's reaction carefully. 

She was only half listening, taking another sip of her drink and tipsily vibing to the music in her chair. "A concert?"

"Yeah, there's one at the end of the month. The Trollharmonic, they do the classics: Beethoven, Bach, Trollzart, all them cool cats," Barb explained with a smile. Then the smile dropped as she 'realized', "Oh, but you guys have that policy on field trips..."

Poppy's face furrowed up as she considered this, humming the song quietly. She asked, "W-Would it be educational?"

Barb nodded seriously. "Oh yeah, for sure, it could be very educational."

Poppy took another swig of beer and hummed, "Perhaps... perhaps we can make an exception, just this once..."

"Yes!!!"

And that's when the power of Stevie Nicks really took ahold of Poppy, causing her to sing out, dancing to the the song in her seat, " _Just like the white wing dove, sings a song, sounds like singing, ooooh, oooh, oooooh.... _"__

__Barb felt something pulling at her heartstrings and she was suddenly hyperaware of how pretty Poppy was, and how close together their hands were._ _

___Oh._ _ _

___Oh fuck._ _ _

__Thankfully, if there was one thing Barb was used to, it was taking all her emotions, and shoving them deep down into the pit of her soul where she didn't have to deal with them. She swallowed her feelings with a sip of beer and half-jokingly told Poppy, "I'm gonna hold you to that."_ _

__Poppy didn't respond to that, too busy singing, though she did gave Barb a wink of acknowledgment that nearly sent her over the edge._ _

__Somehow, _somehow _, though, she managed to keep her cool, vibing along to the music with Poppy, ignoring the stares of the other bar patrons, who were confused as to how such an odd couple came about.___ _

____\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------_ _ _ _

_____Well I'm a lot like you, when you're standing at the crossroads, and don't know which path to choose, let me come along, 'cause even if you're wrong, _" Barb sung quietly as she pulled back into the school parking lot.__ _ _ _ _

______They'd stayed at the bar until they'd finished their drinks and Poppy had wound down a little bit, then they'd gotten back into Barb's van and drove, other than Barb's singing, in silence back to the school._ _ _ _ _ _

______Once she'd sobered up a bit, Poppy seemed a bit more withdrawn, staring out the window with an unreadable expression for most of the ride. Barb did her best to ignore it, as well as the indescribable need to comfort her in such a sad state, choosing to focus on the road instead._ _ _ _ _ _

______" _I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you, won't let nobody hurt you, I'll stand by you, take me in, into your darkest hour, and I'll never desert you, I'll stand by you._ "_ _ _ _ _ _

______Barb sighed as she pulled into her parking spot. "Well, we're here. This was, uh, this was nice."_ _ _ _ _ _

______Poppy managed to give Barb a small smile. "Yeah, I... I had a really great time."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"Me too."_ _ _ _ _ _

______Poppy looked out the windshield in an attempt to avoid making eye contact and said with a sad smile, "You know, this was actually the first time another teacher has asked to hang out with me after school hours."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"Really? No way, I don't buy it."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"It's true," Poppy insisted, her gaze dropping to her hands. "Not once in six years."_ _ _ _ _ _

______Barb saw the genuine hurt in her face and suggested, "Maybe it's one of those things where they're intimidated by you."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"Intimidated?"_ _ _ _ _ _

______Barb nodded._ _ _ _ _ _

______Much to Barb's horror, Poppy buried her face in her hands and cried, "Oh, god, they hate me!"_ _ _ _ _ _

______"No, no, no, they don't," Barb tried to convince her, resting her hand on Poppy's shoulder._ _ _ _ _ _

______"You don't have to sugarcoat it, Riff, I know they do," Poppy snapped, shocking Barb into ripping her hand away. "I see what they're like when they're not around me. I wasn't always like this you know! There was a time when I wasn't so tightly wound! There was a time when I was fun, and happy, and pleasant to be around!"_ _ _ _ _ _

______Barb found herself absolutely speechless. She had no idea that Poppy felt this way._ _ _ _ _ _

______"But then," Poppy continued, tears pricking the edges of her eyes, "I-I became the principal of a prep school, and you can't be fun and a good principal. You can try at first, but these parents, when it comes to their kids, they have no room for error. If anything goes wrong, it all gets pinned on me and they its my head they want. They will come down on me like a nuclear bomb and I don't think I can take that!" She was crying a little bit now. "I can't afford to make mistakes! I need to be perfect!"_ _ _ _ _ _

______Barb could only helplessly watch as Poppy broke down in her car. She was at an absolute loss of what to do. She couldn't just sit there and watch this woman, this beautiful, misunderstood woman, have a breakdown in her car, but what could she do? She didn't even really know if Poppy liked her that much!_ _ _ _ _ _

______Still, she didn't want to just do nothing, so she just kind of gently placed a warm hand on Poppy's upper back and awkwardly patted it a few times._ _ _ _ _ _

______"And all that pressure, to become perfect, has turned me into the one thing I never wanted to be: a _bitch_." Poppy spat the last word out with such self-depreciation, Barb nearly felt herself mentally transport back to how she was in high school. That...... that had been a rough time, for sure._ _ _ _ _ _

______Now was not the time for dropping that info on Poppy, though, so instead she said, "They don't think that, and you're not."_ _ _ _ _ _

"I am though, I'm a big, frigid bitch."

"I don't think you're a bitch."

Poppy looked up at Barb, a few big fat tears rolling down her face. "R-Really? You're not- you're not just saying that?"

"It's true," Barb assured her with a small smile. "I actually think you're pretty cool."

"...No."

"Yeah." Barb subconsciously took her hand off poppy's back and wiped the tears from her cheek. "You're really cool." Her hand lingered near Poppy's cheek.

Poppy stared at her in shock, completely astonished that someone, _anyone_ , saw her as anything other than the sad shell of someone who used to be fun.

Barb stared back, hoping she was coming off as comforting and not as an absolute creep.

It wasn't long before they both realized that they'd been staring for much longer than would be considered normal. 

Barb looked away with an awkward smile, sweat dripping down her brow as she blurted, "Well see you tomorrow, right?"

"Oh yeah for sure see you tomorrow," Poppy exclaimed, equally uncomfortable with the current situation as she wiped her eyes and let herself out of the van.

Barb waited a few moments after she had left to return he gaze to her. Poppy was walking to her car, not too far away. She popped the door open, but before she got in, she looked back at the van and gave Barb a small wave and a smile.

Barb nervously waved back.

She watched as Poppy drove off and left the school grounds. The moment she lost sight of her car, she smashed her burning face into the wheel, her horn blaring for all in the area to hear.

This....... this was not part of the plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3 took me a hot second to finish this one bc i've been dragged into gay raggedy ann hell but like, it's here and it's done! hope you all enjoyed that one because GOD this was a fun chapter to write. Very happy with how this fic has been progressing. Well, anyway, see y'all next time!!!
> 
> -CC


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